


Faithful Only He

by SwansQuill



Series: God is Dead (but not really) [3]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angel Crowley (Good Omens), Angelic Siblings, Angels, Angels Being Assholes (Good Omens), Angst, Aziraphale and Crowley Met Before The Fall (Good Omens), Character Death, Crowley's Brother, Crowley's Fall (Good Omens), Demons, Demons Are Assholes, Fluff and Angst, Gen, God as a character, God is Panicking, Heaven & Hell, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), Lack of a Plan, Lucifer will always think he's right, Original Character(s), Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Philosophy, References to Paradise Lost, Tags Are Hard, The Fall (Good Omens), The Ineffable Plan (Good Omens), Weddings, bad foreshadowing and sad irony, before the fall - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-26
Updated: 2020-10-17
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:00:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 39,645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23331271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SwansQuill/pseuds/SwansQuill
Summary: Lucifer picked a demon to die at random. Just an example, just another pile of ash, just another reminder that the Fall didn't beat him. No one thinks much of it.But that demon was once an angel - was one for most of his life - and he always thought of himself as one. Like most, he never meant to Fall.The story of Crowley's brother, who was important until he wasn't.Also the story of two angels, and what love meant to the Host before the Fall.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens), Crowley & Original Character
Series: God is Dead (but not really) [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1663582
Kudos: 8





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Did I say I was going to focus on my novel and getting another chapter out of 'God is Dead'? Well, I may have meant I was going to listen to Good Omens fan songs and then randomly start writing a story about death. At least, that's what I did.
> 
> This story VERY LOOSELY goes with the rest of my series 'God is Dead (but not really)'. I'm putting it as a part of that series because one of the most important aspects of all the stories, the way I characterize God, is the same. However, this fic doesn't necessarily align with 'Two Sparrows' (mostly because I didn't think Crowley had a brother in 'Two Sparrows'). Obviously, this story will add a new character to that story, but many things are the same, such as the dynamics between Crowley, Aziraphale, & Lucifer, my headcanon that Crowley and Aziraphale were the first married couple in Heaven and so pretty important, as well as the way that Crowley gets looped into Falling. So I'm going to write this to roughly correlate to 'Two Sparrows' (and though you don't have to read that first I do recommend it), but things will be slightly different with the addition of Crowley's brother. 
> 
> Similarly, the character Abdiel - Crowley's brother - correlates VERY LOOSELY with the Abdiel depicted in Paradise Lost (which I haven't actually been able to read yet, so what I know of Abdiel's narrative is sadly taken from Wikipedia). Basically, this means he is a seraph and the general story of his role in the Fall is the same, adding his actual Fall and some other liberties I took.  
> Because of this, the title is from Paradise Lost, Book V: "So spake the Seraph Abdiel, faithful found/Among the faithless, faithful only he".
> 
> Another note: This prologue is technically the end of the story, and I was purposefully vague with it, so prepare to be confused! If it isn't clear, it takes place outside of the bookshop as Aziraphale and Crowley are starting to unpack the books in preparation for the first opening.  
> ***Originally I was going to do the story finish to start, but then I realized it wouldn't work for some scenes so I've changed it. Now everything but the prologue will be chronological.
> 
> Okay, and now the story actually starts.

When the two entities appeared across the street from a new bookshop in Soho nobody blinked an eye, the stream of humans walking down the sidewalk parting for them, unfazed. Nobody bothered them, and for a few breathless minutes they just stood there silently, looking across the street with stoic expressions on their faces.

“Can they see us?” One, a hunched figure standing to the right, said softly, not moving their gaze as they spoke. Feeling self-conscious, they hugged themselves and wrapped two of their tattered, burnt wings around them, dragging the other two on the ground to hide the bloodied stumps on their feet. They smelled faintly of smoke and sulphur, and once their company noticed that they quickly miracled it away.

“Yes,” she said, “and no.” A pause, then when the being didn’t respond explained, “They see two people here. They don’t know what we are.”

“And what am I?” Now the figure turned their head, parting what was left of their highest set of wings to frame their face instead of hiding it.

She shrugged, cocking her head to the side in thought. “I’m not sure,” she hummed. “No one has named the Fallen yet. But…” she trailed off, uncomfortable with how the other being’s face fell at that term. “You aren’t really Fallen anymore.”

“But I’m not an angel.”

“Yes.”

“And I’m not going to Be soon.”

“Yes.” 

The being nodded, letting out a slow, high-pressure breath and redirecting their focus back to the bookshop windows. Through the tinted glass the two of them could just see the two men (-shaped beings) in the front room, unpacking some boxes of books together as they fooled around, teasing each other and bickering lightly with words that, from across the street, they couldn’t hear. Watching them, he swallowed loudly and hugged their wings close to their head.

“Why did you bring me here? I should have been destroyed.”

“I know, and you will be,” she winced, shaking her head. “I made Lucifer too powerful to save you.”

“But?”

“I wanted you to see this. As a sorry.”

The being snorted, scowling and looking so much like his Fallen brother at that point that she had to look away and train her gaze on the couple in the shop for a moment to remind herself that he was safe. That she hadn’t failed him too.

“Sorry? But you meant for this to happen.”

She shook her head urgently, looking back at her son who was refusing to meet her gaze. “No, no I didn’t. This… the Fall was a mistake. I- I panicked.”

The fallen angel nodded, face twisting as they tried not to understand. “You cut us out like a tumor,” he whispered, looking sick and staring unblinking across the street. In the shop, Crowley found a book that, for some reason, he found particularly interesting and started reading it aloud and waving his hands. Chagrined, Aziraphale scolded him and started chasing him around the shop after the book only for Crowley to dance backward around the mostly empty shelves.

“I did. I didn’t know what else to do.”

“Right.” 

She didn’t respond to that, and the two of them returned to an uneasy silence.

After a moment, he took a breath. “Is this a punishment?”

She shook her head. “No. I just wanted to say sorry.”

“Okay.” He sighed, looking down to hide the way his face was twisting. He murmured something, starting with “I” and ending with “you”. Next to him, she sighed and nodded, relieved despite having felt his faith all along.

“And thank you,” he added.

She started in surprise, looking at him with wide eyes. “What?” 

“Thank you,” he repeated, voice soft. “Thank you for letting them have this again.”

She sighed. “You don’t know how long it takes for them to get here. How far they still have to go. I didn’t realize what was happening until it was too late.”

“That’s alright,” he said, not needing her to specify what ‘it’ was. “None of us did. I’m glad you let me see this, though.”

“I know you love them both.”

He nodded, sniffing a few times as he watched the two of them in their dance. Laughing quietly, they covered their face with their wings again as they started to cry. Feeling her heart break next to him, she shuffled closer to wrap him in a one-armed hug, which he gratefully fell into as he buried her face into her shoulder. For a moment, the two of them stood like that as he cried, shaking slightly and doing all he could to hide his ash smudged, tear-stained face with his wings and dirty, knotted red hair. When he was done, he pulled back, taking a few deep breaths but saying nothing as they separated again.

Then, with a sigh, he let his wings relax back on his sides and without a word he and his essence disappeared. In the shop, Crowley stiffened, stumbling on his way to a bookshelf and growing pale. Out in the street, she waited to make sure Aziraphale had caught him as he collapsed before walking away.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! I'm not sure when this story will be next updated (I just thought of the idea and am working on several other projects at the moment), but I will definitely finish it and tele-schooling gives me a lot more time to write. So... yeah. Sorry, for the confusion in this first chapter as well as the brevity.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another chapter? The next day? Yes, this story is really getting away from me.

By the time She got around to creating them She had already made quite a few angels, and so was getting much better at it. None of the “Oh, maybe I  _ should _ add eyes” and “Oops, that head is too big” that Lucifer and his siblings recounted from their creations. There was only one little hiccup, the split, that made them a little bit unconventional.

It had happened actually a little bit after their creation, which in itself wasn’t very exciting - no matter how much Lucifer liked to glorify the tale of his own birth, godly births weren’t very exciting. You weren’t there, the Almighty thought you up, and  _ poof. _ That was the first thing Abdiel had done; poofed. Then the Almighty named him, and that was that.

No, the exciting thing happened later, when She asked him a question.

“Abdiel?” She furrowed H er brow, leaning down slightly to look him in the eye. “Is everything alright?”

Abdiel nodded. Of course everything was alright, it was  _ Heaven.  _ He opened his mouth to say that but then hesitated. Why did everything have to be alright?  _ Was  _ everything alright? For a panicked moment, they had no idea, and so just looked wide-eyed at their mother, who looked just as confused as they were.

“Abdiel, what is it? You can tell me.”

_ See, it’s fine! _ One part of his brain said, gleefully preparing a mental stack of notecards with questions it had noted to ask.  _ Alright - but slow down! _ The other part of him thought, the cautious part, the part that was the reason all of those questions hadn’t been spouted heedlessly already. That part, as usual, took the reins, nodding to the other little self in their head before (mentally) turning to their Mother and saying, “I don’t know how to answer that.”

“What do you mean?” The Almighty looked worried, panicking the cautious side of him which the questioning side quickly shrugged off.

“You asked me if I wanted to help make stars. I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

Abdiel nodded, frowning as the once again conflicting feelings of annoyance (at himself) and fear rose up in them. “I- I want to go. Part of me does, anyway. But another part of me wants to stay in Heaven, with you. It can’t leave.”

“Ah,” She said, eyes defocusing in that way She had that signified She was thinking, or focusing on another part of Herself that didn’t happen to be right in front of them. “Oh,” She suddenly, gasped, “of course, silly me.” Smiling benevolently at them, She waved a hand, and suddenly the doubts and questions and ambitions in Abdiel disappeared, dissipating outwards and refocusing next to him. Starting, the angel whirled around only to be left staring at an angel who had appeared beside him.

He looked just like Abdiel himself, only his wings cut down to two and his eyes gold, not blue. As Abdiel watched open-mouthed the angel studied himself curiously, wide eyes quickly joined by a broad smile as he slowly turned around, searching first his own body and then looking around at everything around them, eyes practically glowing as he caught sight of the first stars already shining above their heads. Looking back down to beam at Her, he said, “I want to make those,” his face freezing in shock for a moment - he actually said it! - before glowing even brighter towards Her and Abdiel.

“I know, I made you for it,” the Almighty smiled, looking down on him adoringly. Turning back to back Abdiel, as well, She nodded at the new angel. “You should’ve been two angels, I’m sorry for that. But now you have a twin.”

“Alright,” Abdiel said quickly, starting in surprise as well at first from how easily he was able to say it. Realizing that, he turned to the other angel, grinning, “No more fighting!”

The angel nodded vigorously before pausing for a moment. Furrowing their brow, they looked over at Her. “Am I still Abdiel?”

She shook Her head, relieving both angels as She said, “No, he’s Abdiel.” Humming in thought for a moment, She eventually proposed, “How about Kadmiel?”

“Kadmiel…” the angel repeated as if testing the name out. Silently they seemed to zone out for a moment, looking into the distance in a way that reminded Abdiel disturbingly of Her. but then they shrugged and the look dropped, replaced with an impish smirk that Abdiel could only label as  _ brother _ . “Sure,” he said, then flexed his wings and glanced pointedly up at the sky, which was getting filled with more stars every minute.

Laughing, She nodded to him, waving Her hand up as if to say  _ go! _ an order that Kadmiel didn’t need to hear twice before waving at Abdiel, flapping his wings experimentally, and zooming off. Awed in his confidence Abdiel watched him go.

“He was a part of me?” He said, disbelieving.

“Yes, but he shouldn’t have been,” the Almighty replied, also watching the angel as he quickly disappeared into the sky. Smiling fondly, She said, “this is a good form for you two. He’s going to be a fun one.”

“And me?” Abdiel said nervously, studying Her and suddenly uncomfortable with the little less of himself he now felt. Yes, he had been overstuffed with thoughts and emotions before, but it was odd to be what he could only assume now to be ‘normal’.

She laughed. “Oh, don’t look so nervous, son. You’re you now, for real. Is that not enough?”

He shrugged, falling in step beside Her as She started walking towards the structures that eventually humans would deem the Silver City. Watching his feet, which looked just the same as before, he said, “I would like to have a purpose.”

“Is living not enough of a purpose?” She asked, and he could tell She was studying him from the side. “Living is a beautiful thing, Abdiel.”

“I know,” he said, nodding quickly, only to find his tongue tied when he tried to respond. Okay, maybe that hadn’t just been Kadmiel tangling his thoughts.

She sighed. “But you want a reason, don’t you?”

He nodded, mute.

“You both have that, you know,” She said, finally relieving him of Her gaze. “Kadmiel and you. You both have such a need to  _ know _ .” He stiffened, glancing fearfully at Her before catching the smile She was directing at him and realizing admiration in Her tone. Chuckling, She asked, “I wouldn’t be much of a good mother if I didn’t indulge that, now did I?”

The silence that fell afterward indicated that the question was rhetorical, so Abdiel didn’t answer, just waited and stopped when She did outside the soon-to-be city.

“Abdiel, do you want the truth?”

He nodded immediately, eyes flickering up bravely to meet Her’s before dropping back down to the ground again, but it was enough. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Her nod.

“The truth is I did not make you with any purpose in mind but to live. I gave you traits I thought would be interesting, and positive, but as you saw I can make mistakes.” Her voice sounded like She was smiling, and though Her admission didn’t sit comfortably with Abdiel he didn’t say anything against it. “You will choose a purpose for yourself; the world is young, and there are plenty of purposes that need fulfilling right now. I think I know what you’re going to choose, because you’re very faithful, Abdiel, but I want you to find that for yourself now, understand?”

“Yes, Mother,” Abdiel nodded. “Of course.” Shyly, they glanced up at Her. “Does that mean I can visit Kadmiel, up there, even if I want to spend most of my time in Heaven?”

“Of course. There isn’t Time yet to be lost!” She chuckled, waving him off when he opened his mouth to ask what ‘Time’ was. Sobering, She stepped forward and leaned down to look him directly in the eye for a moment. “Just tell me, Abdiel, are you happy with yourself?”

Abdiel smiled.  _ How could he not be? She had made him. _ “Yes.”

She smiled. “Good. Now go and talk to Lucifer, he’s curious about why your essence is so different.” Abdiel nodded, then turned and walked away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little short again, and we don't see much of Crowley - or, I mean, Kadmiel - but I hope you enjoyed! I promise a fluffy chapter next time with more of the brothers together. We may also see a certain cherubim make his first appearance...


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, that took WAY too long to write. I severely overestimated the amount of time I have to work on this and on my other fics, so yeah. Hopefully, future chapters will move faster than this one, though there definitely won't be any more two-chapters-in-as-many-days scenarios.  
> Hope you enjoy, little hints of the husbands here.

For the most part, Abdiel preferred being separated. He liked having all his thoughts trend in the same direction, liked not having so many doubts and conflicting ideas warring in his mind. It made it all the easier to go about his work, following the Almighty and greeting the new angels, or helping organize the creation of things, or helping lower angels who were having trouble. The latter became his main job, and he would fly around the Silver City and check in with the angels - most of whom were occupied designing and building different aspects of the world - and help them out with their troubles and advise them like he thought the Almighty would have.

One time, he found an angel sitting at the edge of the city, staring out at where the misty ground faded into the black expanse of space, where stars and nebulae and planets were still continuously popping up. They were not working, just sitting there on a low wall with their shoulders slumped, and worried Abdiel alighted beside them.

“Is something wrong, sibling?” He said to them. They were a common angel, of the type that was mostly working at the moment to create the beings and features of Earth - the Almighty’s chosen planet. Indeed, Abdiel saw some dirt still caked into their hands, ash in their hair and greying the ends of their two white wings.

Not looking at him they wrung their hands, shaking their head. “No,” they said, voice soft and absent minded, like they weren’t really paying much attention to what they were saying. Abdiel frowned, about to disagree before the angel added, “Maybe. Yes.” 

Their voice sounded firmer, and their eyes flickered to Abdiel as they said this. Nodding, Abdiel decided to ignore the first hesitant answer. “May I ask what?”

They shrugged, tilting their head to the side and gnawing on their lip as they looked out into the black abyss. A red star popped up to their right. Abdiel wondered what his brother was up to; he hadn’t checked on him in a while.

“I’m just… confused. I have a question.”

“Have you asked Her?”

“No,” they shook their head. “I’m not sure She knows.”

Abdiel chuckled. “She knows everything. It's just a matter of whether or not She answers.”

“How do you know?”

Abdiel paused, taken aback by the question. How did  _ he _ know? He had the ear of the Almighty, he was a seraphim, he had been rid by Her of all his doubts-  _ wait, rid? _ Furrowing a brow, he thought of his brother, brave and creative and curious. Kadmiel wasn’t just doubts to be rid of, if anything Abdiel himself was more hesitant. But then how did he know?

“Lord?”

“Hm?” Abdiel blinked, suddenly finding himself facing the angel’s worried gaze - not the littered starfields of his brother’s domain. “Oh, well, I know because…” he hesitated, struggling to answer the question that, now that he thought about it, was frighteningly open and unstitched, like a massive whole in the fabric of the world. Where was the thread again? Did he know? “Because,” he looked at the frightened angel, “because how could She not? She made everything, including your question and its answer. Her Plan includes everything - it would not be the Great Plan if it did not.”

The angel nodded, and to Abdiel’s relief seemed to find this at least partially satisfying. “Okay. But it doesn’t seem like She knows. What if She is holding the information from us?”

Abdiel laughed, though it was a little too high and nervous. “If She is, it is only for our own good.”

“What if She gets mad when I ask it?”

“Sibling,” Abdiel gave him a hard look, “She knows everything. She already knows what you are wondering, and is just waiting for you to ask before She gives you the answer. If She was truly worried about the question She would have already confronted you about it.” Abdiel smiled, seeking to ease the fear that had crossed the angel’s face at the suggestion. “But don’t worry, it is not as if you can ask a question She disapproves of. She made us just how She wanted us to be, with no mistakes; we can not do anything that is not Her bidding.”

“Oh,” the angel relaxed, smiling thinly. “Yes, of course.” Nodding to Abdiel, they stood up and spread their wings. “I think I will go ask Her then.”

Abdiel nodded, standing up himself to leave before he remembered. “Oh, wait one moment!”

The angel turned around, relaxing their wings. “Yes?”

“I nearly forgot, maybe go ask Lucifer instead?” Abdiel smiled apologetically. “He knows nearly as much, and I’m afraid She’s actually busy right now working on the Garden. Will be for a while yet.”

“Alright, I’ll ask him,” the angel said.

“May I ask, what’s the question?”

The angel hesitated, but eventually nodded. “I’m wondering, why does the Almighty get to control everything?”

Abdiel’s brow furrowed, but by the time he opened his mouth to correct the angel they had taken off, wings carrying them off into the Silver City, blasphemy on their unknowing lips.

* * *

“You worry too much Abdiel, you know that?”

“Do I? I probably shouldn’t. She said that separating us was supposed to fix that problem.”

“Oi, hey, you’re doing it again!”

“Doing what?”

Kadmiel groaned, rolling his eyes. “Worrying,” he said, then turned away from his brother to focus on tweaking the bits of dust that currently made up his miniature nebula. He moved his fingers like he was painting on a three dimensional canva, nudging things here and there, dipping his fingers into a murky wealth of various gases and then painting them softly into his cloud. Behind him, Abdiel continued to pace, but Kadmiel gave him no notice.

“But I have reason to be worried, this time! What if I sent that angel away just for them to be punished? Luci is probably furious, right now, he’s probably- Kadmiel? Are you listening?”

“Hmm? Yeah, totally,” Kadmiel nodded absentmindedly, focusing on dotting the blue haze of his creation with just the tiniest bits of gleaming white star stuff. It had to be  _ just _ right; this was his first project more complex than just a star, after all.

There was a bout of silence, though it took Kadmiel a full minute (or a minute like thing, for again, Time hadn’t really been started up yet) to realize it. Pausing, he looked suspiciously over his shoulder to his brother, who’d stopped pacing. “What?”

Abdial shook his head, moving a little closer and crouching down next to him. “What is this that it’s gotten you so fascinated?”

“Oh, it's a nebula. My first one,” Kadmiel said, with maybe just a whiff of Pride in his voice.

“It’s very… blue. Are nebulae supposed to be blue?”

Kadmiel sniffed. “They can be whatever color I want them to be. And I like blue.”

“I thought you liked red, and gold, like your eyes.”

“I can change my favorite color now, can’t I?” Kadmiel said, irritated, and standing up he roughly brushed the stardust off his hands. With a frown, he studied the shimmering nebula a moment more before nodding, taking it in his hands and gently tossing it forward. Just like a star it grew and flew away until they were looking over a nebula hundreds of light years across.

Abdiel nodded in appreciation, but tsked his brother anyway. “You don’t. In fact,” he gave his brother a curious look, “you’ve been acting odd since I got up here. What’s up with you?”

“Nothing,” Kadmiel said, his focus shifting to glare critically at the newly born dust cloud. “I shouldn’t have released it so soon, it needs a little fleshing out over there.” Vaguely he waved his hand near the bottom of the cloud, maybe where the blue gas started to fade into the blackness of space, maybe not.

“It’s fine. We have bigger problems.”

Kadmiel snorted. “This is  _ Heaven _ . I don’t think we’re supposed to have problems.”

“Exactly! Which means I must have messed up somewhere along the way…” Abdiel would have cursed, had there been curses yet, and had he not been an extremely righteous and faithful angel.

“You didn’t mess up, Abdiel,” Kadmiel sighed, looking over at his brother. “If you’re hurting then that’s Her fault.”

Abdiel’s head whipped towards his brother. “ _ What _ ,” he narrowed his eyes, fingers twitching towards fists for a moment. “No. Don’t speak like that.”

“Oh come on,” Kadmiel rolled his eyes, “we both know the Almighty isn’t infallible. I mean, look at what happened to us - She admitted it was a mistake! And there’s nothing wrong with that, we all make mistakes, don’t we?”

“Yes,  _ we _ all do. But not Her. That isn’t how this works.”

“Abdiel, you can’t expect Her to be perfect.”

Abdiel scowled. “You know, for a Power you’re starting to sound a lot like that ignorant angel.”

“And for a seraphim you’re starting to sound extremely petty,” Kadmiel shot back.

Abdiel snorted, crossing his arms over his chest and pointedly not responding. For a moment the two brothers focused instead on the nebula, its dust arms slowly swirling peacefully through the bliss of space.

“There’s nothing wrong with not being perfect, you know,” Kadmiel’s voice broke the silence softly.

“I know. That’s why She didn’t make us perfect.”

“She doesn’t have to be perfect either. You can admit that. It doesn’t mean you love Her any less.”

“Maybe.” Abdiel shrugged, suddenly feeling exhausted. “This doesn’t help me with my angel problem, though.”

Kadmiel barked out a laugh. “Oh, don't get me started.”

Abdiel cast him a curious look, but Kadmiel just grinned, opting not to elaborate. “Should I ask?” Abdiel chuckled.

Kadmiel shook his head. “Better I show you.”

Abdiel perked. “Tomorrow there’s a seminar. The animal team has apparently gone all out and are presenting their work in the square for all the choirs.”

“Sure, he’d like that,” Kadmiel nodded, looking thoughtful. 

“He?” Abdiel furrowed his brow.

“My angel problem.” Abdiel laughed, shaking his head.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did I say Aziraphale would appear here? Sorry, Abdiel's anxiety got away from me. I promise we will finally get to see Aziraphale next time! I wonder what Abdiel will think of his favorite brother suddenly getting commandeered...


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, finally, a decent-sized chapter! I'm hoping to start getting chapters out regularly now, and I have a few particular scenes in mind and of course the ending. But I'll see how it goes, especially as I begin to develop Lucifer a bit more than I did in 'Two Sparrows'. As of now, I'm going to progress writing this to make it cohesive with 'Two Sparrows', and though of course there will always be the question, "If Crowley/Kadmiel had a brother he was close with why is he never mentioned in your earlier pre-Fall story?" that should be the discrepancy - hopefully.
> 
> Also, as I am planning on creating a pretty stable arc for both Abdiel and Lucifer as well as Lucifer's party as a whole (who, obviously, would eventually become the Fallen) I feel it's important here to clear up what "canon" I'm following here in terms of pre-Fall history and angelology. There's a lot of different versions of the same essential story - Lucifer betrayed God and he and some angels Fell and became demons - and a lot of different versions of who the angels are, what they did, how they were ranked, etc. So, here's the line I'm following, and what I chose to use from the many many alternative versions I found while researching:
> 
> Lucifer is the firstborn of God and a seraph. Some people say he was a cherub, but seeing as he is the "light-bearer" and so powerful I think it makes more sense for him to be one of the highest angels.  
> The seraphim here I am condensing along with the Archangels (capital 'a', verses the lowercase 'a' archangels of the third sphere), and they are a small class of the most powerful angels with the Archangels being seven especially powerful seraphim. In the Bible, I know Michael is the only one really called an "Archangel", and I've seen in some places that they were the firstborn and the only real "archangel". That's fine, but it's not what I'm using here because of the above.
> 
> Past that in terms of angel hierarchy I'm basically following what you find on Wikipedia under "Christian angelology", though for basic writing purposes I wrote it so that, most of the time, the cherubim do not have four heads, because that will be difficult to write in conversation and I am lazy in that respect. From there is also where I drew the line between star builders and Powers who are said to "supervise the movements of the heavenly bodies", which I stretched to building them in the first place, hence Crowley/Kadmiel's status.
> 
> I'm also following the idea that Aziraphale was a cherub before he was demoted to a Principality. 
> 
> Abdiel's history of fighting with Lucifer and being the angel of faith is largely taken from Paradise Lost, so if you want the battle just before the Fall spoiled for you you can find that on Wikipedia (though of course, I take it a step farther).
> 
> These are some of the discrepancies I found and tried to straighten out in my mind while writing this, so I just cleared them up here. Angelology is - who knew - a knotted and confusing mess, so if there are any more issues or diverging canons I'll clear that up, or just ask in the comments. I know one of my biggest issues when reading pre-Fall fics is trying to figure out which canon the writer is sticking to, so I'm trying to avoid that here (clearly). As one lowly fanfic writer working with at once way too much and way too little, I hope it works it and I don't get anything wrong or offend anyone who does believe in angels.

There was only one square in the Silver City, and by the time Abdiel alighted at its edge it was already crowded with angels. More of a theater-like-space than a square, a large circular stage stood high in the middle of a plaza at the center of the city that was (maybe miraculously, maybe not) big enough to accommodate all the angels of the Host. But it _was_ square-shaped, and it's not as if angels are frequently lauded for their creativity. (Excluding Kadmiel, but he barely paid much attention to the Silver City at all, never mind its city planning.) So that is where Abdiel went to meet up with Kadmiel. 

At the moment, however, his dear brother was nowhere in sight. Up on the stage, the angels who’d been working on Earth’s animal design were nearly finished setting up, and even the large and boisterous crowd had started to settle. Despite his best efforts, Abdiel couldn’t see even a strand of long red hair anywhere.

“Looking for someone?”

Abdiel started, blinking, and turned to face the angel on his right who’d (probably) spoken. He didn’t recognize him, which was unusual. He had no golden angel markings visible on his pale skin, which was surprising as well, just almost see-through blond curls that looked like they’d just been tousled and blue eyes that, once they turned from the stage to him, somehow seemed epitomes of both the ethereal and the low, earthly beings currently being gathered on stage. Abdiel froze; if a human could possibly be as beautiful as an angel, this is who they would be.

“Hello?” The angel frowned, then started wringing his hands nervously. “I’m sorry, did I say something wrong? Are you alright?”

Abdiel shook his head to clear it, nodding sheepishly (not that he would make that analogy, he’d only ever see sheep when he’d glanced at that stage and if you asked him he’d say he looked nothing like one). “Oh, yes, sorry. I, uh, just zoned out for a moment. And yes, I’m waiting for my brother.”

“Ah,” the angel nodded, glancing quickly at Abdiel’s wings - six and iridescent, a blatant mark of his high ranking and the equally high ranks of all his siblings. Abdiel smiled, holding it even over his surprise as he glanced at the other angel’s wings; four. A cherub, then. _Yet so… unangelic._ (Put like that it sounded like an insult; it was anything but.) Unaware of the thoughts playing in Abdiel’s head the angel smiled brightly, holding out a hand. “My name is Aziraphale.”

Abdiel nodded. “Abdiel. I don’t believe we’ve met.”

Aziraphale’s eyes widened, looking at him in surprise. “You did look familiar! You’re-” In a booming voice, the angelic team leader started the presentation, cutting Aziraphale off. Caught off guard, the two of them turned to face the stage. A screen floated above the presenter with a slideshow of various animals they’d created and the speaker’s voice totally drowned out any polite conversation, so Abdiel studied the screen and presenters with vague interest, occasionally (i.e., every few moments) glancing at the strange cherubim next to him.

Then, like a tug on some invisible string, he felt his brother’s aura enter the square directly behind him. Turning around, he mouthed an “excuse me” to Aziraphale (who, oddly, had also seemed to perk and was glancing behind them) and started moving backward in the crowd to meet his brother.

“Kadmiel,” he scolded, catching his shoulder and leaning into his ear to be heard, “you’re late!”

“Yes, yes, sorry,” Kadmiel grimaced. “Just got, eh, a bit distracted. I’m here now though, aren’t I?”

Abdiel rolled his eyes. “Of course, brother. Glad to see you.”

Kadmiel smirked, wrapping him in a quick one-armed hug before he started forwards again through the crowd. “You too. Now, I just need to find… Aziraphale!”

Startled, Abdiel followed wide-eyed as his grinning brother dragged him forward right back towards the cherubim, who he waved at and (though he wouldn’t admit it, while red and sputtering) gave a quick hug.

“Zira,” he cleared his throat, laughing and rubbing the back of his neck, “erm, this is my brother, Abdiel. Abdiel, this is-”

“Aziraphale,” he nodded at the angel, who looked equally as flustered as Kadmiel, for some reason. “We just met, actually…” he frowned, studying his brother who suddenly looked nearly as young and human as the cherub - despite his eyes and the gold spots beneath his ear and on his cheeks - spots which had just become islands in a sea of red.

“Oh,” Kadmiel looked between the two of them, but finding no ill will (and pointedly ignoring his brother’s stare) shrugged. “Well, sorry I’m late, Zira. You didn’t make a fool of yourself in front of my great seraph of a brother, I hope?”

Aziraphale gasped, glaring at Kadmiel in mock offense. “Pardon me, if anyone here is embarrassing it’s you.” Aziraphale turned to Abdiel, eyes glinting mischievously with a glance to his friend. “He came by my place yesterday, covered in stardust and smelling like it too, and then had the gall to strike up a conversation with Lucifer! Very unseemly.” Aziraphale rolled his eyes, tsking Kadmiel who’d directed a pout his way.

“Oh come on, Luci is my brother’s brother, we’re practically family. Right, Abdiel?” Kadmiel nudged Abdiel in the shoulder, raising his eyebrows. “Come on, help me here,” he hissed, grinning at Aziraphale.

“Sure, family,” Abdiel snorted, eyeing the two laughing angels warily. “But wait, you said you saw Lucifer yesterday? Was this before or after, erm, you know…” he gestured meaningfully at a flock of third sphere angels behind him, looking at his brother seriously.

“After,” Kadmiel smirked. “And trust me, you have no problem. Luci is fine, I even asked about the angel. No harm no foul, he says - even said the question had got him thinking, whatever that means.”

“You- you asked him? Directly?”

“Well, what else was I supposed to do? Listen to you yammer - literally to the high heavens - or hire Zira here for a sting operation?”

“A ‘sting’ operation? What?” Aziraphale leaned forward to look past Kadmiel’s shoulder at the two of them, his brow furrowed.

“Nothing,” Kadmiel waved him off. “My brother is just a worrier, is all. Now, what is _that_.” Mouth open, he put a hand on Aziraphale’s shoulder and directed their attention to the stage, where an angel was holding up some long, ropey creature. On the screen flashed close up pictures of the creature, with its flickering tongue, scales, and yellow slitted eyes that made Abdiel shiver. For the second time that day, he wondered what in Heaven his brother was thinking.

“Nothing, yet,” Aziraphale said, studying it with the same apprehension as Abdiel. “She says the humans are going to name everything.”

“Lucky buggers,” Kadmiel muttered, still watching the creature on stage with aw. “That thing is brilliant.”

“Really?” Abdiel raised his eyebrows, studying it skeptically. “Looks like a colorful noodle.”

“And see those fangs? Looks like they’re supposed to be dangerous,” Aziraphale tittered, clearly not sharing in his friend’s enthusiasm.

“Aw, come on, Aziraphale. You’re a soldier for crying out loud. Not afraid of some little animal fangs, are you now?” Kadmiel teased.

“Absolutely not!” the angel pouted, crossing his arms. “But… swords don’t have long, slimy bodies.”

“I don’t think it’s slimy,” Kadmiel frowned, tilting his head. Just as his eyes lit up Abdiel groaned, recognizing the look.

“No, Kadmiel, don’t-”

“Let’s go, Zira,” Kadmiel grinned, looping his arm through the slightly frightened looking cherub’s and tugging him forward. “We’re getting a closer look.”

“What, no,” Aziraphale sputtered, pulling Kadmiel back by his arm and inadvertently bringing him flush against him in the crowd.

“What,” the Power smirked, leaning forward so that his nose was almost touching a blushing Aziraphale’s. “Scared of the earthly beings?”

Aziraphale froze, staring at Kadmiel for a moment, who himself was starting to flush. Behind them, Abdiel cleared his throat and the two of them pulled apart slightly.

“No,” Aziraphale insisted, then promptly started dragging Kadmiel, simultaneously confused and grinning, through the crowd. Abdiel watched them go, brow furrowed. _What just happened?_ He’d never seen Kadmiel act like that, nor share banter so easily with an angel that wasn’t himself. It was… odd, and so was that angel. _Why?_ Worrying his lip, Abdiel stared ahead at the stage, half watching, half thinking, and not at all paying attention to those around him. When Lucifer clapped him on the shoulder he jumped, his two biggest wings flexing outwards and almost hitting his fellow seraph.

“Hey, Abdiel, calm down,” Lucifer chuckled, holding up his hands and edging around Abdiel’s wings.

“Sorry,” he retracted his wings, sighing. “You startled me.”

“Yes, I could tell.” The firstborn eyed him, taking a moment to look around. “Where’s Kadmiel? Were you not meeting him here?”

“I was, but,” Abdiel waved an arm forward, “he got excited by that noodle creature. Dragged that cherub friend of his along for a closer look.”

“Ah, Aziraphale.” Lucifer smiled knowingly, crossing his arms and settling next to Abdiel. He hadn’t put much thought to it before, but it made sense that Lucifer would know Aziraphale. The seraph spent a lot of time with the cherubim, working with them as Abdiel did with third sphere angels, but also socializing - if his presence at Aziraphale’s home was anything to judge by. Glancing at Lucifer, Abdiel tried to imagine him hanging out with Aziraphale, and though he barely knew the cherub the image still felt wrong. Lucifer, so charismatic, so arrogant, so perfect it hurt to look at him, glowing even then with a soft light and carrying a slightly crooked smile. His brother, next to that polite, flustered angel with the odd eyes - they seemed like two entirely different classes (and yes, technically they were, but also socially).

Lucifer peered at him curiously. “These things aren’t _that_ interesting, Abdiel. What’s up?”

Abdiel shrugged, avoiding the morningstar’s gaze. “Just my brother, he’s been acting a bit odd lately…” he glanced at Lucifer, who had also turned to watch the stage.

“They both have, haven’t they,” he mused. At the foot of the stairs where space had been cleared for the animal pens, Abdiel saw Kadmiel appear, Aziraphale close behind him. “The cherubim are very close, you know.” Abdiel nodded, glancing pointedly at the cliche of cherubim right next to them. The angels were the ‘army’ (whatever that meant), and they lived, trained, sang, and preened together. There were firmer lines between cherubim and non-cherubim than there were the spheres, hence Lucifer catching attention for being so close to them. “Aziraphale, now, he’s always been a little bit of an outsider. He has a few friends, and I try to take him under my wing, but he is… odd. Softer.”

“Nervous?”

Lucifer nodded. “Exactly. But then Michael introduced the two of them the other day, and I have never heard Aziraphale talk so much.”

Abdiel laughed. “Kadmiel will make anyone talk, whether it’s through jokes or aggravation - usually both. And he isn’t exactly an average Power, either.” It was true; Kadmiel was friendly with most of the angels he met, and when he wasn’t working Abdiel saw the big gaggles of angels he often traveled with - sometimes his fellow Powers, sometimes the seraphim (most of whom he was still close with, hence him probably tagging along with Michael while she checked on her troops), and if Aziraphale was anything to go by probably the cherubim now as well.

“Yeah, well…” Lucifer shrugged. “Never mind, I’m not complaining, if that’s what it sounds like. I’m glad Aziraphale’s finally reaching out.”

“Mhm,” Abdiel nodded, mind already having wandered away from the subject. “Listen,” he said, wincing slightly, “I’m sorry about that angel the other day, I hope you know their question was perfectly innocent, they didn’t tell it to me until they were flying away and I-”

Lucifer laughed, startling Abdiel. He clapped the angel on the back with a grin, smiling wider at the surprised, bug-eyed look he got in return. “Kadmiel is right, you do worry too much, brother.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Did Kadmiel not clear things up? Oh well. You’re fine, and so is that little angel of yours. Actually, he got me thinking.”

Abdiel’s brow furrowed and he eyed Lucifer suspiciously. “Thinking? You look like Kadmiel did when he first unveiled black holes as a prank.”

“I suppose I can see that, yes,” the morningstar grinned, the same grin that would later inspire the term _‘devilish’_. “But what I’m thinking isn’t going to suck in any galaxies.”

“Care to share?” Abdiel sighed.

“Well, it’s nothing new really. The thing just is, I couldn’t answer that angel’s question.”

“What, ‘Why does the Almighty control everything’?” Abdiel glared at him, jaw dropping slightly. “Because She’s the Almighty, for Heaven’s sake!”

“Now now, brother, you know that isn’t really an answer.”

“Lucifer, this is dangerous ground you’re eyeing.”

“The truth isn’t dangerous,” he frowned. “And I’m not trying to put Her down, I’m just wondering.”

“Well wondering-”

Suddenly there were shouts, and in a tidal wave of robes and feathers the angels nearest the stage started fleeing, flapping their wings or going on foot as fast as they could away from the stage. Peering through the dissipating masses, Abdiel caught the sight of red and blond heads of hair bobbing right next to the stage as well as a long, slithering line that looked suspiciously like the creature Kadmiel had been so curious about. Cursing (not actually, he just said “Kadmiel”, angrily under his breath, but it was to the same effect), Abdiel waved a hand at the stage, snapping at Lucifer, “Wondering is about to get my brother’s hand bitten off, so excuse me!” Then he flew away into the chaos, sighing at the sound of Kadmiel’s laughter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments and kudos are always appreciated! And remember, never trust anyone who just says they're "thinking".


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow. I opened this fic and found the date of my last update only to realize I haven't written anything here in three weeks! Which is ridiculous, seeing as I have had this chapter and the next one bouncing around in my mind for weeks. But sadly quarantine did give me a break from school projects, and I had to stop all writing to finish them on time (a two-week writing hiatus which hurt my brain so much I will never do it again). I swear I never planned (or plan) to go this long without updating, and going forward I will still aim for about one update a week in both my fics. To make up for it, however (and totally not just because I lost track of my word count), this chapter is extra-long.
> 
> Comments and kudos are always appreciated!

He was worried about Lucifer.

Of course, Kadmiel had been calling him a worrier since even before they were separated (and yeah, he couldn’t really be sure it was him, but Abdiel was certain that the part of his mind that had reflected that had ended up in Kadmiel), but this felt different. Usually, he could simply banish his worry just by thinking on it long enough and coming to the realization that it wasn’t that important, and if it was then She would help him take care of it, just as she had done when he and Kadmiel had been fighting their inner war. And if that didn’t work, a quick explanation to his twin or one of his other siblings was always enough to get them shaking their heads and convincing him that everything was alright.

Yet this time no amount of internal reasoning could shut down the gnawing in his mind, and he didn’t dare talk to Kadmiel or anyone else. Why? He wasn't entirely sure… but it didn’t seem the kind of thing he wanted spreading, whether it be for Lucifer’s sake or for the angels who might actually be willing to listen. For what Lucifer had alluded to was… there was no word for it - Heaven had never seen anything like it, should never have, Abdiel thought - but if his brother kept going then Abdiel was sure it would lead nowhere good.

And he did keep going.

“She may have created us, but we are our own beings! You weren’t there in the very Beginning, Abdiel, if you had been you’d understand. We’re on a higher level than anything She’s created before, better than it all, really.” Lucifer insisted quite soon after the gathering in the Square, walking through the gardens with Abdiel where he’d pulled him aside to talk about what he’d mentioned earlier. Abdiel had meant to correct Lucifer and to ease his own worry, but the more the angel talked the more it seemed he was determined to feed the panic growing in Abdiel’s chest.

“What do you mean, ‘better than it all’? You can’t know that, you can’t make those kinds of assumptions about quantitative value. It isn’t how things work. You can’t compare the value of an angel and a, uh, a snake. They’re completely different things!”

“Yes you can,” Lucifer retorted, rolling his eyes. “Angels are clearly better. And She created us all, so of course we can be compared.”

“But why? Why focus so much on comparing ourselves to what else is out there?” Abdiel groaned, frustrated with the way the morningstar’s mind seemed to skip around, untrackable. "We're all Her creations."

“Because, brother, I’m trying to prove to you that we are our own beings, that we’re capable of thinking for ourselves, and the best way to do that is to show you how the stuff before us _couldn’t_ do that.”

“Okay, fine. And are you going to actually tell me what that stuff was, or just hang over my head that you’re older than me?”

“Don’t be daft, Abdiel,” Lucifer frowned, shaking his head and then suddenly grabbing his arm, pulling him off the path and into the shade of the trees they’d been walking down. It was a prototype forest, the angels in charge of it hadn’t fully figured out how the ecosystem would work yet with the kind of balance She wanted, so the only plants present were young trees - birches, in this case - scattered across a forest floor of packed grey-brown dirt and not much else. Abdiel had heard they were experimenting with adding shrubs in other, smaller patches, and looking to see how to deal healthily with leaf litter and other debris, but for the time being, most of the trees were being kept safely like this to avoid accidentally killing them (for, though some of the life designing angels made it look easy, making new living things from scratch did take a lot of effort, especially when they hadn’t really figured out how tree reproduction worked yet). They walked easily beneath the crowns of the trees, occasionally ducking beneath some low-hanging leaves but otherwise free to wind their way between the trunks. Or at least, Lucifer was - Abdiel was still stumbling behind to keep up with Lucifer, whose grip on his arm didn’t relent. As the path disappeared behind them, Abdiel’s brow started to crease and he forced his brother to slow down.

“Where are we going, Lucifer? there’s nothing here.”

“Nothing on this plane,” the firstborn said, smirking.

“What in Her name are you talking about, ‘this plane’," Abdiel scoffed. "You know as well as I that they haven’t put anything but some rocks down on the Earthly plane yet.”

“I don’t mean the Earthly plane,” Lucifer shook his head, pointing upwards. Abdiel’s eyebrows shot up, and he looked up through the trees where Lucifer was pointing but spotted nothing more than the bright and dappled light of the Heavenly sky (which wasn’t really a sky, as there was no atmosphere, but rather just some white void that no one had taken to filling yet). “I mean the earliest plane of reality. The one She created first, the original one. Where I was created, where she created this plane from.”

Abdiel’s eyes widened. “But I thought- I thought there was just void before this. Void, then you, the rest of us seraphim, and then Heaven.”

Lucifer smirked, looking pleased with himself as he let his hand back down. “Nope. She made something before me, in Her original plane. A forest.”

“I- is that what you were talking about when you mentioned what She created before?” Abdiel asked, feeling confused. “Because really,” he sighed, “comparing yourself to a forest as your argument doesn’t seem that compelling…”

“No, no, it wasn’t a forest like this one. You see, look at this.” Lucifer turned away from him to face the nearest tree, and jumping slightly he grabbed hold of the tip of a pale birch branch and flexed it downwards. It bent easily in a neat curve right down to his chest, displaying a set of virid leaves, almost glowing as the bright light of Heaven shone through them, reflected by the white bark of the tree behind them. Lucifer grasped the edge of the branch, holding it steady as he waved for Abdiel to come look. “What is this, do you think?” The question was honest, and Lucifer didn’t react as Abdiel eyed him skeptically, just stroked his thumb against the rough edges of a leaf, eyes wandering down the thin veins.

“A plant, created by some third sphere angel. A living thing, the first generation of non-celestial beings.”

Lucifer nodded, looking pleased. “Exactly. It wasn’t created by Her, but by an angel. It’s a non-celestial being, the first of its kind.”

“But you said the first thing She made was a forest.”

“Yes.” Lucifer stepped back and let go of the branch, ignoring it and instead turning to Abdiel as it bounced up and down for a moment from the sudden release of tension. Abdiel looked up, watching it, until suddenly Lucifer was talking again. “I’m not comparing myself to a plant like this, Abdiel. These plants are different, lesser, created to play a part in the world which can not be filled with Her better creations, like us. What I’m talking about is a different kind of forest, a celestial forest. That forest up there,” he jabbed a thumb to the sky again, “that forest is Her. It was the first, most basic level of creation.”

Abdiel’s head hurt, and shaking it he turned away from Lucifer and sat down at the base of a tree. Lucifer didn’t join him, just stared down at where he sat, rubbing a hand down his face. “Lucifer, I don’t know what you’re talking about. You have to be clearer. What do you mean, that forest was Her?”

“I mean exactly that,” the morningstar said firmly. “It was an extension of Herself, literally. Right after I was born I remember walking through it, and I walked through a field of long grass and ran my hands through it. She stepped right out of it, or maybe part of the grass became her, I’m not sure, but either way, She was suddenly there and She was giggling and telling me to stop because stroking the grass tickled Her.”

“You… you tickled the Almighty?”

Lucifer laughed, loudly, and up into the trees. “Yes! It wasn’t on purpose, and I was confused, so of course, I asked why, you know? And She explained that She _was_ the grass, She was the trees and the shrubs and everything else. She felt everything they felt because they were Her body just as much as the corporation She presented to me was.

“And so I asked Her, well, could She feel what I felt? And I was feeling somewhat disappointed because I _thought_ I was my own person, but if I wasn’t, then…” Lucifer shrugged, looking uncomfortable for a moment before laughing it off. “Let’s just say that didn’t sound appealing. But I wasn’t, because like I said Abdiel, She created us to be different - to be our own people. She told me, ‘Lucifer, you are not me. And it’s great that you aren’t, because it’s so terribly boring being the only one around!’ So you see, Abdiel, we _are_ greater than Her previous creations. First, She made the forest - or garden, or whatever you want to call that planty place - and that was the first level of creation. Then, She got bored with that, because it was so basic, so She created us - the next level! So we’re the best there is, Abdiel, we are, She created us to be the next form of complexity in the universe. She made us to think for ourselves, to be independent beings, and in that way we’re just like Her!”

Abdiel had been nodding along, fiddling with his hands that lay draped over his knees but agreeing. It made sense, he understood that progression of things - until that last statement. _We’re just like Her._ The statement, said aloud, chilled him to the bone and hung heavily in the air, stealing all of his focus like some contraband or disgraceful thing that he had to scramble to hide, fast, before anyone could see, and until then it would itch at his brain and not let him rest until it was gone - banished back to where it came - and maybe even after that too. It stole his breath, the panic that feeling induced, so that he could only stare, frozen, at his brother, who was still pacing and rambling on.

“So of course I didn’t punish that angel. In fact, the question makes sense, because if we’re just like Her why should she-”

“Enough!” Abdiel finally caught his breath, though it was just barely enough to push through a shout that was loud enough to silence his brother, silence him before he could say something he couldn’t take back. Scrambling up from his seat, Abdiel glared at Lucifer, shaking his head and swallowing loudly. “Enough, stop talking.”

“What, are you afraid She’ll hear?” Lucifer sneered. “She already knows, She knows everything!”

“I know, that’s not what I’m worried about,” Abdiel said, voice firm enough that it at least got Lucifer to stay quiet, studying him. “I know She knows, because as you said, She’s aware of everything. She knows exactly what you’re doing now, and exactly what you’ll do in the future, because guess what Lucifer? You’re wrong. You are not like Her, none of us are, and I advise you to stop talking before any other poor angels get wind of that idea and get punished for being fooled by you.”

“Fooled by me?” Lucifer spat, his studious face growing angry in a startling flash. “I’m not some deceiver, Abdiel, I’m not trying to ‘fool’ other angels into following me into some sort of godly punishment. I’m just thinking, I’m just asking questions, and it’s fine. And I’m not wrong, I’m right! She created us to be like this, to be equal to Her, She basically told me Herself. You can’t be angry at that, brother, that’s being angry with Her!”

“I would never be angry with Her,” Abdiel said, voice soft in comparison to Lucifer’s but just as firm and insistent. “You know why She makes all the decisions? Because She knows more than us, She is wiser than us, She is greater than us. I believe you when you say we are the next level of Creation, Lucifer, but to jump from that and your conversation with Her in the beginning to the idea that we are equal to Her is just _wrong_.”

“Oh yeah? What’s the difference?” Lucifer was goading him, and they both knew it. What Lucifer was forgetting almost made Abdiel feel sorry for him, but he reminded him of it anyway.

“Free will, Luci. She has it, because She is the Almighty. She can do as she pleases. But we can not. Yes, the forest was the first level of creation, and we are the second. The first step She took was making, and then she tried taking it a step further by making something other than Herself. But just because we are a step in front of something else doesn’t mean that we are first, that there is nothing in front of us.”

Lucifer had sobered at his statement, looking pained at the reminder. But he did know that, surely? Abdiel thought he must, there was no escaping it. For if they had free will they would not have been able to follow the Great Plan correctly - the one She was laying out as they argued in Her woods - because every being is prone to mistakes, unless She ensured otherwise. It was a good thing - if a little uncomfortable for headstrong types like Lucifer. But no matter how uncomfortable he got, surely he couldn’t just forget a fact like that, right?

Abdiel couldn’t think of an answer to that question, because when Lucifer spoke next it was in an angry hiss he had to use all of his attention to hear. “I am the firstborn, the morningstar. I know what’s out there just as much as you do - if anything, I know it better. We are the most forward step, the best thing She has. We are the closest thing to Her, we are our own people, and these are our own lives. Why shouldn’t we contribute as we do in the creation? We do Her dirty work, we should and are capable of helping in management.”

“And if She wants us to we will,” Abdiel sighed, looking away and regretfully back towards the path. The path back towards the city, the comfortably peaceable angels. “But you know as well as I do we are not equal to Her, because She knows everything about us and created us with all our future actions determined already. If we were equal to Her then we would know everything about Her as well, which is impossible, because She has free will.”

“That doesn’t change the fact that we are the best thing out there,” Lucifer repeated.

“Not for long. You remember the humans, don’t you? The ones who will get to truly enjoy all this life," he gestured at the woods around them. " _And_ decide what they want to do with it.”

Lucifer didn’t respond, just shrugged, crossing his arms and looking down to the flat, bare dirt ground. It was a quiet forest, a fact Abdiel had heard from third sphere angels complaining about the other day as they discussed the possibility of mixing animal life into the forest. Personally, Abdiel didn’t mind it. The city was loud enough, and with Lucifer not speaking this was the first time all day that he’d heard anything remotely silent. He sighed, relaxing in the comfort of the lack of sound and the knowledge that he’d _won_ , there would be no more worry about Lucifer nor any (and he barely dared to admit that this existed, but it did) doubt lingering in his mind. It was like a weight had been lifted off of him, and feeling freed Abdiel turned back in the direction of the path and told Lucifer he was going back.

“Wait.”

Like a good angel, he stopped and turned around politely, though he wouldn’t try to pretend that there was no irritability in his tone as he replied, “What?”

Lucifer just snapped his fingers, distracting Abdiel from the unusual dejected look of his face, and then he was pinching his thumb and index fingers together around a weird _rumpling_ in the air behind him. Abdiel stiffened, head immediately beginning to hurt as the space by Lucifer’s hand started to warp and the angel tugged down hard at the grasp he had at whatever was between his fingers, bringing it down and tearing it until there was a gap in space as tall and as wide as Abdiel was, just rippling right next to the other angel. Abdiel gaped, gaze swimming with what he was seeing.

“This is the entrance to the plane above us, the plane where Her forest is. That’s why I brought you here, it’s where we crossed over the first time, and where the boundary is weakest where She sealed it. I don’t know if She still goes back there consciously, but the forest I’m certain is still there. It’s different than this forest, and I think if you saw it you would really understand what I’m talking about.”

“Lucifer…” Abdiel shook his head, but was unable to come up with any coherent argument with the hole in space still wrinkling in front of him.

“Just, try,” Lucifer said, looking at him with a pleading gaze. “Just look, it can’t hurt to look.”

“I don’t know.” He shook his head, taking a step away. “I-”

“You don’t trust me?”

Abdiel only hesitated a moment before nodding, adding quickly after his brother’s face fell, “Only with this. I trust you, just…” he shrugged, giving a pained grimace, “I’m a worrier, you know.”

“Right, of course,” the morningstar nodded, sighing, dejection written clearly on his face. “Alright then.” With that, he crouched down, pinching the bottom of the hole - which hovered just a few centimeters off the ground - between his fingertips again. Focusing, like it took a bit of effort, he ran his fingers all the way up the hole, pinching it shut until all that remained was a little, distorted _bump_ in the air next to him, barely discernible from the background of whispering branches and leaves. “I’ll leave this here,” he gestured meekly at the bump, “if you ever change your mind.” and then, before Abdiel could reply, he was gone, walking past him and squeezing his shoulder as he went by, then fading away into the trees. Alone, Abdiel stared at the little bit of warped space, the finger-hold Lucifer had left him to get into the plane above - _Her_ plane - should he ever want to. It stood, not even really visible, before him, completely unassuming. Abdiel couldn’t look away from it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Will he open the weird space zipper? Who knows. (Actually, a lot of people can probably guess where this is going, but as the author, I have to at least pretend I'm being unpredictable.)
> 
> And, if you have read the beginning of my other fic - God Is Dead (and we killed Her) - I'm sure you've been able to tell by now that there is only one thing I like more in fanfiction than random philosophical debates and references, and that is playing around with the fabric of spacetime and manipulating it in ways that probably hurt the heads of anyone who puts effort into actually picturing each and every scene. You're welcome!


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dammit, I meant to get to Lucifer's warp in this chapter, but then I had 2,600 words and I realized I shouldn't start a whole new episode. So whatever happens (or doesn't happen) with that will definitely happen next chapter!
> 
> Also, I realized that this whole time I've been using the term "choir" to refer to the three subcategories of angels. In fact, the proper term is "sphere", and the spheres are divided into nine choirs each. Oops. But I've corrected that all this chapter and hopefully caught all the mistakes in previous chapters too.
> 
> Comments and kudos are always appreciated, and if anyone catches any more mistakes be sure to tell me so I can correct it. Thanks for reading! I know there isn't a whole lot of Aziraphale/Crowley in this fic, but don't worry, I do plan to write their wedding - eventually :D

Abdiel tried to ignore the bump, but it was as if, in opening it for him, Lucifer had tied a thread to the bump and knotted it to a needle on the other end, then placed the needle right in the back of Abdiel’s skull so that, should his thoughts stray even the  _ tiniest _ bit in that direction they were speared onto that connection and he had to struggle to even be able to pretend the bump on the other end of the string didn’t exist. It was like an addiction, or the gradual wearing down of the strength that was meant to be keeping him away - each time Abdiel was reminded of the bump it became harder and harder to break free of the urge to go back to it until, pretty soon, it had set up shop in the back corner of his mind, never to be banished again. That is, not until Abdiel went back and stepped through the hole, but what would that do? Abdiel was too afraid to find out. So the needle just kept stabbing him, the line growing ever tenser.

It was not as if he was unused to the feeling of being connected to something. Ever since he had been separated from Kadmiel, Abdiel had felt a length of twine connecting them, a nearly invisible and relaxed thing that pointed him to where his twin was at the moment and got his attention when he was in trouble. It was comforting, always being able to feel Kadmiel on the other side of the string and knowing that, no matter what, he was never truly alone. It was his main support when he got worried, the thing he grabbed onto to keep from going over the edge time and time again . So as Lucifer’s string started tugging unnervingly at his mind, Abdiel reached for Kadmiel, gripping the thread as hard as he could to keep himself from being pulled away by the string and off the edge - that was how he saw it, at least.

But when he reached for Kadmiel’s string each day Abdiel found it increasingly harder to find. And the angel, too, was becoming harder to pin down.

Kadmiel was usually busy, either lost in a sea of stardust far above the city or hanging around another group of angels - large or small, at the center or the edges, first, second, or third sphere, it didn’t matter; unless Kadmiel was working he was never alone. Abdiel was used to this and used to fishing his brother out of the flock of angels or dust particles, whichever it may be.

But that only worked if he could find him, which as their connection weakened wasn’t coming easily, and asking around Kadmiel’s usual groups it seemed that none of the angels really knew him well enough to predict where he might be. One second sphere angel who hung around Kadmiel’s regular groups didn’t even know that Kadmiel was a Power, despite him constantly smelling of stardust and spending most of his time up in the heavens (and yes, the night sky was also called “the heavens” in Heaven itself, the only difference being a lower-case ‘h’, because the word ‘heaven’ really just meant ‘the place above’, and She said Heaven would be above something someday). After that particularly disappointing query, Abdiel gave up asking around, for clearly his brother - despite his popularity - didn’t have many close friends. So then he asked their siblings, who didn’t know either, though most suggested he asked Lucifer because  _ of course _ the first-born - always wanting to be just like his mother - would know where all the angels of importance were. But Abdiel refrained, the sight of his brother approaching already causing alarm bells to ring in his mind and a needle to dig deeper into his consciousness. Feeling cowardly and frustrated Abdiel flew away, gliding high over the buildings of the Silver City until he was sure he was out of his brother’s sight. Like sand trickling out of the top of an hourglass, he felt his connection to his brother fading, as if Kadmiel was somehow loosening the knot that strung them together. Each time the connection slipped and shrunk it left a bit of open space, space Abdiel instantly filled with worry.

* * *

Then, like mist on a cold morning, Kadmiel appeared again out of nowhere sometime later, after Abdiel had returned to his usual routine.

He saw his twin out of the corner of his eye as he passed the experimental menagerie, the vast complex of pens for the animals the third sphere angels were still working on creating (all of which flanked the gardens and the young forests, though Abdiel didn’t dare think about that). When not surrounded by nebulae and little suns the angel’s hair was eye-catching - the only kind that was really like Abdiel’s own - and, presently, it bobbed up and down in excitement right outside the gates. Startled, Abdiel turned.

Kadmiel had his back to him, his wings out behind him, twitching like he was anxious to be somewhere or to get something. In front of him, leaning against the broad leg of the arched stone gate was a Dominion with dirty blond hair and a supremely bored expression. They were nodding up and down along with what Kadmiel was saying, occasionally butting in to say something that nearly always brought a frown to Kadmiel’s face.

“I just don’t see why you’d want one specifically. Like, we have plenty of worms - a lot of different kinds of worms, actually. You can take one of those”

Kadmiel groaned, shaking his head in irritation. “No, no, you’re not understanding. This isn’t a worm, nothing like it. Okay, I mean, it is a lot like that, just without the slimy bits. And more colorful. And smarter. A worm won’t do.”

“But the slimy bits are the fun part,” the other angel pointed out, raising an eyebrow. “And anyway, it doesn’t matter, because worms are what I’m allowed to let out. Worms and bugs. No vertebrates can leave yet, we can’t have them escaping and running around in the gardens, now can we?”

Kadmiel groaned. “No, no, of course not, but I won’t let it loose, I swear it, Hastiel!” Kadmiel pouted, though the Dominion’s expression didn’t move an inch. “I need it!”

The other angel furrowed his brow. “For?”

“Erm…” Kadmiel squirmed, then shrugged. “Reference?” His shoulders straightened, and Abdiel could imagine how his expression brightened as he thought of a worthy excuse. “Yeah, reference. I want to make a constellation out of it. I think She will be really impressed with it.”

“Right, like She’s who you’re looking to impress with all this,” the Dominion - Hastiel, Abdiel assumed - smirked, lips widening into a grin as Kadmiel blushed a deep red all the way down to his neck - the only part Abdiel could really see clearly from his view.

“Ngk, that’s not-” Kadmiel shook his head, shoving the papers into Hastur’s hands. “Just think it over, will ya? I’ll owe you one.”

Hastiel shrugged. “Sure, why not. Come back later, maybe I'll have something for you.”

“Perfect.” Kadmiel beamed, patting the angel on the shoulder and then spreading his wings as if he was about to take off. “Good talk,” he said, and once Hastiel had completed his eye roll he was off, taking his time to rise above the menagerie.

Bracing himself Abdiel gritted his teeth and spread his own wings.  _ Not so fast, brother _ . Shooting upwards, he caught up to Kadmiel in mere instants and was soon flanking him and pulling him to a stop by the arm.

“Where have you been?”

Kadmiel blinked at him, seeming surprised. “Oh, hey Abdiel, nice to see you too. What’s up?”

Abdiel sighed, letting go of Kadmiel to rub a hand down his face. “What’s up? You’ve been pretty much missing for who knows how long - not a single person has been able to tell me where you’ve been!”  _ And our connection is slacking _ \- but he didn’t voice that part.

Kadmiel furrowed his brow. “Did you look for me at work?”

“Um,” Abdiel pulled back, pausing for a moment in embarrassment. “No… but I wasn’t going to search those thousands of light-years you take care of!”

“You never had any trouble finding me before,” Kadmiel rolled his eyes, then turned and started flying away again. Abdiel followed him.

_ That was before you start untying our link, _ he almost snapped, but caught himself, as they’d never really discussed that connection between them. He was pretty sure Kadmiel felt it too, but… well, something in him stopped him from speaking the thought aloud. Instead, he said, “Anyway, that’s not the point. Outside of work, no one has seen you anywhere.”

“Cool, thanks for letting me know,” Kadmiel quipped, glancing at him with a hint of annoyance.

Abdiel sighed. “Care to explain, or do I just have to guess?”

Without warning, Kadmiel pulled to a stop, hovering in place and waiting for Abdiel - who had kept flying - to circle his way back around. When he was once again facing his brother the Power frowned. “Abdiel, please. I get that you’re worried, but you’re  _ always _ worried. I’m fine, just…” he paused for a moment, seeming to think about whether or not he wanted to continue, before shrugging, “I’ve just been hanging out in the gardens, okay? Carmel let me and, erm, a friend in, and we’ve been spending our free time there, just playing around. Nothing to worry about.”

“Right,” Abdiel nodded, though his lips stayed curved down. Kadmiel smiled, beaming - in fact, his annoyance had given way to a beaming grin as soon as he’d mentioned the other angel, whoever they may be. Abdiel studied him with suspicion for a moment, not trusting him, nor the itching feeling he couldn’t name that was starting to fill the space where his brother’s strong presence had once been. 

Kadmiel looked at him strangely. “You good?”

“Huh?” Abdiel blinked, then shook his head as if to clear it. “Y- yeah, I’m fine.”

“Okay, right then.” His brother nodded curtly, then shifted his wings and started to pass Abdiel to go back on his way. “See you later then!”

“See you,” Abdiel replied thoughtlessly, staring for a moment with a furrowed brow at the space Kadmiel had occupied. By the time he had gathered his wits enough to wheel around Kadmiel was just a red dash ducking into the botanical gardens behind the expanse of the menagerie. Huffing and not trusting his brother for a second Abdiel gathered what little of their connection he had left and headed off after Kadmiel.

* * *

  
  


He found Kadmiel exactly where the angel had said he’d be, doing pretty much exactly what he claimed to be doing. He realized this almost as soon as he’d landed - behind the trunk of a large tree, of course, so his brother sitting on the rocks by the creek a few meters away wouldn’t see him - but the guilt from spying still wasn’t enough to get him to leave as curiosity slung its rope around his neck

His brother was sitting a little bit away from the water, leaning on his wings which had propped themselves against a sunny rock. In front of him he groomed the bottom right of a set of four wings, all stretched out before him with complete trust.  _ A cherub _ , Abdiel saw, surprised. Cherubim never let anyone who wasn’t of their choir preen their wings. Yet, catching sight of near-white hair from behind the wings, Abdiel’s surprise disappeared. Yes, he could guess who it was now. And as the breeze carried their conversation over to him his suspicions were confirmed.

“Honestly, dear, you didn’t have to go to all the trouble, it was just a passing fancy. And I’m sure Hastiel wasn’t very pleased with the idea.”

“Nonsense, I want to get a close look at the thing - we barely got to see it last time. And if you happened to also be interested in it, why, all the more reason to bug Hastiel until he gives in. Or loses it, allowing me to sneak it behind his back. Whichever comes first.”

Aziraphale sighed, and the wings shifted as he altered his position. “Of course. Well, thank you anyway.”

“Any time, Zira, you know I can’t resist.”

“I know.”

Laughing quietly the angel leaned back, withdrawing one pair of his wings and resting the other two in Kadmiel’s lap as laid back, grinning up at Kadmiel with a smile that would have made even Abdiel pause, had he not already been frozen to keep from attracting attention to himself. Kadmiel, however, wasn’t phased (unless one counted the blush that swarmed his face and neck) and smiled back at him as he leaned forward and gave the angel in his lap a long, slow kiss on the mouth. Watching, Abdiel shifted uncomfortably, simultaneously confused - the kiss was odd, longer than any respectful greeting or familial show of affection, as he was used to - and awkward, like he was intruding on something private. Technically, he was.

After a moment the two angels pulled back, though Aziraphale didn’t sit up again, Kadmiel moving to play with his hair in his lap rather than the other angel’s wings. Humming in pleasure, Aziraphale closed his eyes, then opened them again to look at Kadmiel.

“Darling?” He said, so softly Abdiel could barely hear him. Kadmiel hummed in response, not looking away from the tiny braids he was making in Aziraphale’s short hair. “You know I love you, right?”

Kadmiel chuckled, smiling but otherwise barely reacting. “Of course you do, Zira. You love everyone and everything.”

“No, not like that,” Aziraphale whispered, putting a hand up to still Kadmiel’s so that all the Power had left to do was look him in the eye. “Differently. I love you more, more than anything really.” He looked up at Kadmiel nervously, blush growing as the angel continued to stare at him, speechless. Alarm bells were ringing in Abdiel's own head, and he watched the angel suspiciously. He'd _known_ something was different, hadn't he? Aziraphale, unaware of Abdiel's thoughts, gulped. “Kadmiel?”

“Ngk, yeah,” Abdiel’s brother shook his head, blinking rapidly. “I mean, no. I didn’t know. But…” he gulped, running a hand through Aziraphale’s hair again and then moving down to cup his cheek. “I’d hoped.” Aziraphale smiled, pulling Kadmiel’s hand over to his lips and giving his palm a soft kiss. Kadmiel blushed crimson, just a shade lighter than his hair. “And yeah, I love you too. More than anything or anyone.”

They pulled together, doing something that Abdiel couldn’t see as he stumbled backward, not even caring as brush crunched underneath his heels and branches cracked as he spread his wings and started mindlessly flying away, head spinning.  _ I love you, _ Kadmiel had told Aziraphale.  _ More than anything or anyone _ . More than the other angels, Abdiel assumed he’d meant. More than Her. More than  _ him _ \- the brother that was a part of himself. How was that possible? The jealous tickling in his chest grew, rearing its head in the tears that watered the garden as he flew over it, unseeing. The tickling was almost as overshadowing as his confusion, welling up to flood everything else out of his mind. Because it didn’t make sense, that wasn’t how love worked. You didn’t love one person more than others, and you didn’t love anyone more than Her, the Almighty.  _ How could She do this? _ Why would She take Kadmiel away from him, and more confusingly - less selfishly - why did She take Kadmiel away from Herself? Or was there something he was missing?

Reminded by the trees, Abdiel realized the only way to find out.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a lot of fun to write, but I'm anticipating its a bit of a vague and confusing read. But I did warn that this series is just an excuse for me to play around with God and the laws of the universe, so... Please tell me what you think! Comments and kudos are always appreciated!

The bump unzipped into a clean gap effortlessly between his fingers; Abdiel had to do nothing more than grasp it and nudge it up for it to slide open, almost as he was just pulling at a part that had always been there, moving his hand like it was always meant to - for him and countless others before him. He had no idea how much of that was true, and much of it was certainly Lucifer’s doing, and even as the easiness of it all relaxed his body his mind fought against it, distrusting.

Doubting Her couldn’t be that easy, after all.

Well, the actual act of opening the gap (bridge? door? what do you call the hole in the very universe through which lies a whole other plane?) meant nothing. It was just a symptom of his doubt - the actual birth of the doubt should have been the hard part. But when he thought about that, standing stocky in front of the hole and watching with half a mind as it rippled, that just worried Abdiel even more. Because that had been even easier than this, so easy, in fact, he didn’t even remember when he’d started. Had it been when he'd seen how oddly his brother and Aziraphale acted, those days or weeks ago? Had it been when he was entertaining Lucifer as he questioned Her? Had it been when he chose to follow and spy on Kadmiel? Had it been when he'd seen his brother and Aziraphale kiss, or heard him renounce Abdiel and Her in favor of the cherub? He had no idea; it was all of those moments and none of them. Little inching steps, each had been, he supposed, all so-  _ so _ terrifyingly easy.

And, no matter what each of those moments were, or when they had happened, or what taking Lucifer up on his offer meant, it was true. Abdiel was doubting. He hated himself for it and hated himself for being so loyal to Her when it was She he was doubting all at the same time.

All these thoughts and little parties pushed against each other inside him for a while, bickering and calling for his attention and pushing so hard to get away from the other ideas also inside him that for a moment Abdiel thought he might need to go to Her again and get himself split, turned into three or four or one hundred angels because clearly, this situation wasn’t working. It was too painful, too painful to listen to Lucifer talking and remember the feeling of Her loving touch and see his brother kissing Aziraphale all at once. It was too confusing, and nothing at all stood out but those words -  _ “More than anything or anyone.” _ Like a black hole (another thing, ironically, made by his brother), those words sucked everything in, always wheeling him back around to face them and pulling him ever closer in preparation for his own oblivion. He stared into the hole, the writhing gap of nothingness in front of him that trembled just beyond the lips of the Heavenly plane. The dark of those words, or maybe of his doubt, or maybe - actually quite literally, in this case - of the weight of Lucifer’s request and silent offer. Not blinking, Abdiel slowly moved his hand through the gap, watched as it floated, unperturbed, in the space between planes. He took a step forward until everything up to his elbow was no longer in Heaven, no longer in anything, floating in the space between things. For the first time, a part of him wasn’t in Heaven; wasn't in anything.

_ More than anyone… _ he heard his brother whisper. Abdiel stepped forward.

* * *

It was like… what was crossing that threshold like? It wasn’t really like anything, Abdiel thought.

Like being born, maybe. It was like being born, but just in reverse.  _ That’s not possible, _ Abdiel’s mind told him; but that’s what it was like. Kind of.

It was like returning to that state which had occupied the very first moments of his existence, only instead of going from just a conscious mind to a mind in a body in a world he was going from that back to being simply a conscious mind, unaccompanied by matter or even a defined sense of body and self. He was there, he had a mind, he had wings, he had hands, he had a body, and there was a world around them. But where did he end and the world begin? It was like being born in that it was impossible to know, the more he focused the blurrier the boundaries becoming.

He stepped over the threshold into a complete vacuum; his body moved with no air resistance; the feathers of his wings - no longer spread out, but neither put away yet - stayed unnaturally unruffled; his larynx opened and contracted, but not air moved through it and no gasp came out. His nerves felt nothing, nothing at all, and no sound traveled except the rapid drumbeat of the heart he didn’t need. Shakily his first step forward stopped, neither resting on any ground nor continuing down and forwards, probably as he expected it to stop. And so it was as if he was floating.

In what, he could not be sure of. The void changed constantly, and though there was no matter he could feel the irregular waves of energy as they plowed through him and he saw them in rapid and warped flashes of lights all across the visible and invisible spectrums. But maybe waves was the wrong word, maybe jolts or flashes was better. Because for waves to be perceived one required a continuous flow of time, not the stopping and starting frames that existed in the void. Some frames lasted mere milliseconds, others lasted the time it took Abdiel to take several steps, but there was no way he could connect movement that occurred between these moments or even really string together what happened within them. Time flowed like it did when one tried to recall a faded memory, or a half-remembered dream - it was all just flashes of events and lights and feelings, seemingly with little connection or transition between them. Just standing there still was disorienting enough that, had he not been a seraphim, Abdiel doubted he would have been able to take another step forward. But he did, and then he took another, and another, closing his eyes at some point to stop himself from getting distracted and turned around by the lights. He kept pushing forward, just telling himself to  _ walk _ and focusing on little else. With his eyes closed he followed the only direction he could - the thin and trembling knots of energy that shivered and shed particles of light and heat and static like tense, shivering ropes would shed faint droplets of water. They all ran parallel to each other, closer in some places than others, sometimes with their shed energy mingling and condensing (as much as energy could “condense”) into new thread bridges between the lines, like thin and knotted capillaries. He ran his fingers along these guidelines, following them forward blindly. Their other ends had all collected in bundles around the entrance he came out of, so maybe they were fastened to the higher plane on the other end? That was the reasoning he followed anyway, going up and forward in a place where there was no space to go up and forward through until he stopped.

There was another track, new lines of energy even stronger than before, thrashing up and down and knotting dangerously where they crossed over the lines Abdiel had been following. They moved up and down in waves, creating a swirl of energy that the angel dumbly registered as painful even as he stumbled into it. Yet at the same time as they stung - shocked him like his siblings sometimes did when they shot a thin tendril of lightning at him in jest - they drew him in, turning his direction to follow them as if his stream had just joined a river whose current completely overpowered the weak push of its smaller tributary.

And this river was short, he could feel it, new tributaries of vague energy teetering their way into it and making it stronger, more painful, more alluring. He barely had to work to move his feet anymore, and at one point he simply stopped, keeling over in ever-increasing pain, and the river kept him moving. It sped up and strengthened for what could have been mere moments or hours more (likely wasn’t either, as Time really only seemed to work when it felt like it, whenever this was) until suddenly it slammed him into something solid and Abdiel could move no further.

He opened his eyes, a mistake. The light shed off of the river was nearly blinding, pulsating in ripples of different colors that mixed and changed each other, but mostly just were slammed together into unforgiving blasts of harsh white rays. This display surrounded him, pushing him forward slightly into the thing he’d bumped into, the thing that seemed to be both the river’s source and its mouth. 

But to call it a thing would be wrong. It was a door, just like the gap he’d come in through only this one felt (how, he couldn’t explain) like it was actually meant to be opened and closed, though it was definitely shut tight at the moment. Looking at it hurt his head, and he could just barely perceive it as a bundle of energy emitting white and black light and  _ moving _ , though how and what shape this light made blurred and muddled his thoughts. It wasn’t solid, that was for sure; that feeling of being slammed against it hadn’t from being pushed into something solid at all, but rather hitting it at the exact moment it was emitting a repelling force towards him. But this too, like the light, changed constantly, gravity and antigravity taking turns and alternatively attracting and repelling him. He couldn’t see it, couldn’t really perceive it beyond those basic perceptions, Abdiel realized; it was something only for Her, no one else. He swallowed, and should he have had air he would have been breathless.

Instead, he just stood frozen until an abrupt fluke in the current pushed him forward and he was on the other side.

* * *

“Hello?”

Abdiel stopped walking.

The voice sounded again, thin and weedy, like a flute that was rusty and damaged and hadn’t been used or repaired in very long. Like a flute that didn’t even know if it was going to make a sound at all. “Hello?”

Abdiel opened his mouth to respond, but just as the other side of the threshold there was no air, and his larynx could provoke no waves in what wasn’t there. There was no energy either in this place. The river had disappeared, and not even the faintest lines crisscrossed this plane. This wasn’t the garden, and his stomach dropped.

It couldn’t have been the garden, because the garden was supposed to be empty. But there was someone here, and they kept repeating: “Hello? Hello? Hello? Hello? Hello? Hello?  _ Hello _ ?”

How were they talking? Abdiel tried but he couldn’t make a sound with his mouth. The lack of matter to carry sound didn’t seem to bother the speaker though, who just kept repeating themselves slowly and steadily, each ‘Hello?’ like the ticking of a clock. (Oh! Time was back! he thought, relieved.) Realizing this, he also realized two other things.

There was no sound traveling. Just little bursts of energy, pulses rather than traceable lines or streams, all echoing from one source and seeming to say - in some primal language he hadn’t known he knew - “Hello?” 

There was something, or someone, in that same direction the bursts were coming from. He could feel their presence, their matter and their gravity, and if he strained his eyes in the otherwise dark field he could see them as a little dimple of grey. He walked towards them, listening to their greetings, and after a while even found it within himself to copy them. He said, only somewhat tentative, “Hello?”

They stopped answering. But they were there, Abdiel could see them, lying down on their side and staring at his approach, and he walked right up and sat down on his knees in front of them, finally tucking in his wings. Eyes wide, he reached out to touch them. They didn’t look real, yet every feeling he got from his senses insisted that they were. He touched them, and as their soft cheek confirmed it he gasped.

“Are you…?” they whispered, staring at him with just as much - if not more - shock.

Yet he didn’t answer.

In the void, their existence laid so heavily it was almost impossible to be able to detect anything else, as there was nothing else to counterbalance it. But he could feel it when he touched them, their aura that was almost drowned out, and it was not an angel's.

It was something else. They were something else. But what else was there but angels? Everyone was an angel.

But this being wasn’t. “Hello?” They said, not moving, just continuing to stare at him. “Hello? Are you…?”

This being was more like Her-

_ No. _ This being was  _ exactly _ like Her.

He stared at Them, unmoving.

“Are you…?”

“Am I?” He asked back, too fast, too sharp, and They flinched. Then stared at him in awe.

“You exist. But…” 

“Who?”

“Who?”

He shook his head, staring at Them in rising fear. He stood up, taking a step back, noticing with pain how They began to reach for him with a hand before stopping abruptly, confusion and fear holding their hand fast. “Who put you here?”

They furrowed Their brow, eyes unfocusing back to what Abdiel felt must have been their normal state in that blackness. “I… I don’t know. I saw… only briefly…” They paused again, then questioned a thing that sent Abdiel stumbling back until suddenly he was sitting down, on the floor, legs poised to scramble away from Them but not moving.

“It was-” they did it again, expelled that primal code of energy that, despite neither having consciously known before could recognize and repeat instantly. “-I think.”

Abdiel nodded, a cold shakiness overcoming every limb of his as he struggled to get up. Without saying another word he turned around, half stumbling half running back towards the only other dimple in the endless blackness - the exit.

“Wait!” They called, sounding confused and desperate, though he didn’t hear them make a move after him. “Wait! Why? What?” They paused, confused, but then continued, “Wait! No! Stop! stop! stop! stop! stop!” over and over again with rays of energy that peppered the back of Abdiel’s skull and went straight through his wings when he brought them out as shields.

But he ignored them anyway, and after a period of agonizing time that his simple mind couldn’t comprehend he was back, panting and curled up with his wings around him defensively on the ground back in the proto-forest.

_ They were just like Her… _ the words repeated themselves endlessly in their mind. They were exactly like Her, imprisoned in that void, and the words they had uttered to answer his question had been Her name. On the ground he lay, shivering, stomach aching, ichorous vomit leaking into his mouth where he had to spit it out, though it was just too little to allow him the grace of retching.

She had an equal.

She had locked them away.

The thought made his head ache and spin, it was so incomprehensible. He didn’t know how long he laid there, only that it was the most pain and confusion he’d ever felt in his life. He ached for Kadmiel.

Instead, though, he felt Lucifer’s presence walk up to him, and the angel dropped down to help him sit up. Gently he helped him spit and rubbed his back, face grim.

When Abdiel had steadied and was lying down safely against the inside of Lucifer’s wing, his brother shook his head. “I should never have opened that up for you.”

Abdiel nodded. “Yeah,” he rasped. Then he thought of Them again, and his head hurt so much he felt himself pass out.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So at first, I didn't really know where I was going with this chapter, but I actually think that what I thought of worked out quite nicely and will fit in the overall plot. I do love social movements and sowing the seeds of rebellion and all...
> 
> I wanted to cover more in this chapter, but by the time I reached 2000 words I knew I wasn't anywhere close to where I wanted to be and it was a suitable cut off point, so here you go. Some reveals, but not a lot of action (that'll be next time). There will also (finally! hopefully!) be more Ineffable Husbands in the future as Abdiel starts working more with them both socially and just plot-wise (you'll see what I mean). But then again, I don't have any detailed plan for this story, I'm pretty much just (to paraphrase Margaret Atwood) taking a lantern and wandering in the dark with it to see what I find. I think I'm in a forest, but who knows!
> 
> Comments and kudos are always appreciated!

He woke up in Lucifer’s home, in a room similar to the kind that humans would one day call a living room. There, a place for him to lie down had been created and an energized mug of the angels’ usual drink had been left beside him. Groaning, Abdiel clutched his head with one hand as he sat up while groping for the cup nearly blind with the other. Someone pushed it towards his hand, and gratefully he chugged it down, sighing in relief as the persistent ache deep in his essence began to fade.

When he put the mug down he saw Lucifer. The morning star sat close to him, slouched over an armchair with two of his wings out and draped over him like a blanket. He looked like he could have been sleeping (for, despite popular belief, it was actually quite common for angels to sleep on occasion - Before the Rebellion and Fall, that is) from the sheer exhaustion in his limbs, but his eyes were open and staring blankly at the ceiling. If baggy eyes had been invented at that point Lucifer most definitely would have had them. But, as it was, Abdiel could tell that something was wrong with the archangel without those hints. Sitting up straighter, he ignored the thoughts making his head pound and greeted Lucifer, finally starting him out of his stressful reverie.

Lucifer’s eyes widened. “You’re up. Are you okay?”

Abdiel nodded, studying his brother. Something was wrong, but he didn’t voice it, instead settling for, “Yeah. My head hurts, but that’s all.”

Sighing and relaxing down into the chair Lucifer nodded, looking pleased. There was a pop as he brought out his top wings, the smallest set emerging from around his head, and laid them over his eyes as if to block out the already dim light of the room. For a moment he kept them there, head tilted back to rest on the back of the chair in silence. Abdiel nearly thought he had gone to sleep.

But then the firstborn straightened, groaning as he revealed his eyes again. Using them to look straight at Abdiel he furrowed his brow. “What happened?”

Abdiel blinked at him, brain not processing the question for a moment. “What happened?”

“Yes,” Lucifer nearly growled in frustration. “What happened? You weren’t supposed to pass out, or be gone for so long - did you even reach Her plane?”

“Gone? Wait, how long was I gone?”

Lucifer’s lips thinned, and he didn’t answer. Abdiel could tell that he wouldn’t.

Sighing, he just shrugged at Lucifer’s question. “No, I didn’t get there. I…” _I saw something else._

“Well what took you so bloody long then! What, did you just wander around between dimensions for all this time?”

“I don’t know, maybe!” Abdiel snapped. “Though possibly it would help to explain to me how long I was gone so I can fill in the gaps for you?”

Lucifer rolled his eyes. “Ab, come on, I don’t have time to explain this to you. Just tell me what you saw and then I need your help.”

“With?”

“Something, just- never mind. It’s not important now.” Lucifer groaned, dropping his head into his hands. _Obviously not,_ Abdiel nearly said, only catching his tongue at the last moment as Lucifer finally began to speak. “Just tell me what happened, okay?”

“Right,” Abdiel said, letting a breath whistle out slowly between his teeth. What happened… a lot happened. And… nothing? Not that much, actually. Not that much that he could explain, anyway. _How long was I in there?_

Apparently growing bored, Lucifer cleared his throat, gesturing for Abdiel to continue. Giving a slight start, he did.

* * *

Lucifer was silent throughout the entirety of his story. At the mention of the extra dimension he stood up and paced, his two bottom wingsets flaring and knocking a few things over before he put them away, but he didn’t make a sound. He kept away from Abdiel, keeping on the other side of the room and using his top two wings to partially shield his face as he sometimes did when he was under stress and didn’t want anyone else to see it.

“I just don’t know what to think,” Abdiel finished, dizzy from the memory and from following the morning star’s pacing back and forth with his eyes. “I mean… what would you even call Them? Are They another Almighty? How are They related to Her? They didn’t seem to know much, They couldn’t speak, but They were lonely, and scared for me to leave, I know it. Why would She put Them there?”

“More like She locked Them there,” Lucifer growled, and his pacing continued.

“But I could move in and out of the door…”

“And you think They could?”

Abdiel shrugged, slumping back to rest against his elbows on the cot. “I guess not. Probably not, since they’re still there.”

Abruptly Lucifer stopped and turned, returning to his chair with a few long strides and collapsing into it. He looked Abdiel in the eye, gaze burning. “We have to tell the other seraphim about this.”

Abdiel blinked. “What, why? There’s barely anything to tell, it’ll just confuse them.”

“At first, but then we need their help! This’ll convince them.”

“Help with what?” Abdiel glared at his brother, who once again looked like he felt like ripping his - or somebody’s, at least - hair out. In fact, Lucifer ran a hand through his hair and gripped it dangerously before letting go. Abdiel watched him with suspicion; he had that look on his face like he was planning something - had planned something, but getting others to cooperate wasn’t going as well as he’d like. “And what did you say you needed my help with?”

Lucifer sighed, looking away. “Don’t freak out.”

“I’m not going to freak out,” Abdiel huffed, even as he felt a nervous pounding make a home in his ears. “Not knowing is worse, you know.”

Lucifer nodded. “Yeah, probably. But…” he winced, looking away from Abdiel. “I think… I think what you just told me makes this issue much worse. It, it may help convincing people, but it makes me realize how bad this is.”

“How so?” Abdiel raised a brow. “What’s bad?”

“Well, you’ve been missing for a few days…”

“ _Days_!”

“Yes, days,” Lucifer snapped, looking annoyed, “and, uh, I don’t know, maybe two days before I sensed you reappearing - coming closer to this plane, you know, that’s why I was there before - She disappeared.”

“She-”

“Yes, She disappeared, now will you let me finish speaking?” Lucifer looked at him menacingly, his usual soft glow brightening slightly and stinging Abdiel’s skin. Abdiel flinched, nodding. Lucifer continued. “So She disappeared about two days ago, don’t know where, She just isn’t in Heaven any longer. But the same day, well, um… your twin, Abdiel, and Aziraphale were discovered.”

Abdiel grimaced at the reminder, his mind habitually starting to flash back to that scene in the garden that had made him leave Heaven to begin with before he could reign it in. With the tone of an older sibling who is quite used to his brother’s antics, he replied tiredly, “What’d he do this time?”

Lucifer stiffened. “Absolutely nothing wrong. You already know, Abdiel - he’s just fallen in love with Aziraphale.”

“Yes.” Abdiel swallowed, looking away. “And is that the problem? What does that have to do with Her disappearance?”

“It’s a problem for the other angels,” Lucifer said, sounding grave, and when Abdiel looked up to see him the lines crossing his face matched his tone. “I," he grimaced, voice taking on a guilty tinge, "I may have joked around our siblings about Kadmiel going to snog Aziraphale. Gabe was confused so I jokingly explained it and... he was not happy. We didn’t think they were doing anything wrong, but…” the firstborn sighed, waving a hand to gesture at some vapid thing before flinging himself further back into the chair. “Gabriel and many of the other angels don’t seem to think so. They say it's a crime to love anyone as much as Her, and when She disappeared they took that as a sign that She was displeased. Kadmiel and Aziraphale are being punished as we speak.”

Abdiel froze, incredulous. His brother, the star maker, one of the most popular angels of all the spheres, and his sweet emotive friend - punished? And by his own sibling? He shivered at the thought. _I love you… more than anyone or anything._ He knew how Kadmiel got when what he cared about was threatened - had seen the Power confront even seraphim with rage at times when he’d believed Abdiel or others to be wronged. What would he get like if someone got between him and _his_ angel? “He must be livid…” Abdiel murmured aloud, anger and fear for his brother striking him. “And Gabriel…”

“Is twice as powerful and not even a fraction so patient, yes,” Lucifer nodded gravely. “He and his followers have taken to calling them ‘the traitors’, and it’s only been two days.”

“For loving?” Abdiel gaped, eyes wide - though he was less surprised and more disgusted. “That bastard, it's not as if he reserves none of his affections for the other angels.”

“Bael,” Lucifer said, nodding with a smirk that didn’t seem nearly as serious as the matter at hand demanded. But it was true, Gabriel and Bael stuck to each other nearly as firmly as Aziraphale and Kadmiel did, and though they weren’t _in_ love, per se, and certainly not publicly affectionate, they most certainly loved each other as seraphim siblings and close friends. Abdiel wouldn’t want to be around either of them should they suffer the same punishment that Gabriel (and probably by extension Bael) were inflicting on his brother, the hypocrites.

Grimacing, Abdiel nodded, then stood up and spread his wings (in a notably more controlled manner than Lucifer had earlier). “What happened to them? Show me,” he ordered. Lucifer raised his eyebrows but stood up too, releasing his wings too knocking over the mug from earlier before leading the way out of the building.

* * *

The two angels had been separated, of course. One at Gabriel’s, the other at Bael’s. Just held, nothing more, probably for a stern shaming (as was Gabriel’s favorite method of punishment).

“I talked to them but they won’t let them go,” Lucifer said as they flew. “Bael won’t touch anyone, and Gabriel will stick to torturing them mentally unless they attack him.”

“But Kadmiel will hit somebody if he can, I know him. If he thinks they’re doing anything to Aziraphale…” Abdiel trailed off, both avoiding the possibly bloody end of that statement and the wince in his chest at the thought. _More than anyone else._ Once Abdiel had been the one Kadmiel had stood up for, when they had been together and apart. For a fleeting instant Abdiel wondered if Kadmiel would even want his help after avoiding him for so many days before he left.

“It wouldn’t look too good, certainly,” Lucifer confirmed, cutting off Abdiel’s chain of thought. He frowned, lips curling downwards in something disturbingly close to a sneer. “Those angels are so bloody loyal to Her they’ve lost their minds. You should have seen it, it's terrifying.”

“Of course they’re loyal to Her,” Abdiel retorted, though he (and probably Lucifer too) could tell that his heart wasn’t in it. “She’s the Almighty.” _But is She? Or did She just that by default because she imprisoned Her partner, or even Her creator?_

Abdiel’s head hurt from all the painful thoughts shouting for his attention, but before they could grow worse Lucifer signaled for them to descend and he followed the morning star down to Bael’s residence, just managing to clear his head. Getting Kadmiel before a fight broke out, that’s what he needed to think about. _Nothing else, that all can wait for later._

“Okay,” he sighed, closing his wings a moment after Lucifer. “Let’s get Kadmiel.”

Lucifer, though, shook his head. “No, Aziraphale is here. We’re getting him first.” He started walking towards the door purposefully.

Abdiel stiffened, not moving. “What, why?”

“Because,” the eye roll was audible in the firstborn’s voice, “Kadmiel is too aggressive. As soon as he’s out he’ll start a fight if Aziraphale isn’t there. We need Az there to keep him calm - remember, avoiding a fight is the whole point.”

Abdiel huffed, begrudged to admit the good point Lucifer made. “But why do you need me, then?” He retorted. “I’m here to get Kadmiel out, to promise Gabriel that I’ll keep him in control.” Lucifer raised an eyebrow skeptically at that, but Abdiel ignored him. “Get the cherub out yourself, I’ll get Kadmiel.”

“Abdiel, I don’t need you because you’re Kadmiel’s twin. I need you because you’re the angel of faith. Nobody but you and I is closer to the Almighty. They’ll only listen to us _both_.”

Abdiel swallowed. _Angel of faith._ That was what he was supposed to be, wasn’t it? He’d always known it, it had been told to him - though maybe not in so many words. But faithful to who? Her? or Them? or... Kadmiel?

“So, are you coming?” Lucifer stared at him steel-faced.

Abdiel nodded. “Lead the way.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: Here I used Bael as an angelic name for Beelzebub. Technically Bael is a demon inspired by the pagan god Ba’al/Baal, a god that also inspired the demon prince Beelzebub. But I’m stealing it here because the suffix -el, meaning God, is nearly always present in angel names and the name is similar and etymologically related to Beelzebub. And who knows? Maybe our Beelzebub took some stints as the god and demon Baal and Bael for kicks and just used their angel name to get on Gabriel’s nerves. Just wanted to note that, as I try to avoid writing angels that correlate to specific demons (exception the Hastur cameo, if anyone caught that a few chapters back) and I suck at renaming them.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay! After eight chapters here we have something from Kadmiel's POV. I didn't get as far as I wanted, and its a bit long, but I felt like it was important to explain more how this conflict came about. It was also really fun to finally get to write more of Kadmiel, even if I didn't get to write him with Aziraphale (which, let's be honest, is the most fun). I promise a great reunion between the two next chapter. Sorry for the late update, hope you enjoy!

_ “What are the rules?” _

_ He’d asked it early on, back when he didn’t have to share Her with anybody else but Lucifer, Michael, Gabriel, and Uriel. Back when the Silver City was merely a thought mumbled aloud by their Mother, when the older four would flutter around and play their games - Lucifer and Michael fighting with imaginary swords, Uriel tossing around newborn stars like confetti, Gabriel toddling around and making up stories of objects until they became real - and he would sit cuddled in Her lap, watching them in fascination and envy. Back when he was still Abdiel, the two of them one together, all alone (though he always assigned that question specifically to the part of him that became Abdiel - not that anybody could differentiate the two of them at the time).  _

_ “What do you mean?” Her voice was gentle, soft, very quiet then. There were no more than five people to speak to; it didn’t need to be loud yet. “What is a rule, my son? Could you explain it to me?” _

_ He’d shifted, uncomfortable, but a slight squeeze from the embrace around him comforted him enough for him to respond, “Um, I don’t know exactly. I can’t tell you what they are, just what they’re supposed to do. You have to create them yourself, or else they aren’t rules.” _

_ He felt the chest beneath his head chuckle as a hand stroked his hair. “Could you be a little more specific?” _

_ “Rules are things that guide you. They keep you from doing the wrong thing by telling you what to do, and what not to do.” Then he frowned, a sudden thought occurring to him. “But… they can also be annoying if someone else forces you to follow them, and you don’t agree with them. Rules aren’t almighty and can be wrong, just like angels can, and they can be… what is that thing Lucifer thought of earlier?” _

_ “Bad?” She offered, and he could tell by Her voice She equal parts confused and amused. _

_ “Yes! Bad! Rules can be bad, and then you _ have to _ break them.” Looking back, it was pretty clear who said that sentence. It was a surprise She hadn’t noticed his disjointedness sooner. _

_ “But, they can also be good, right?” _

_ “Yes.” He nodded firmly and pointed over to his brother Gabriel, who was MCing (or doing what would later be called MCing) a wrestling match between the two eldest angels, Lucifer and Michael. Lucifer took the offensive, leaping up and over Michael to grab her wings, but she was too fast and dropped onto her back first, where she aimed with her feet and struck the firstborn squarely in the belly, sending him back sprawling. Floating above them, the younger Gabriel ooed and awed over the move, shouting and commenting as the fight continued. “A bad rule would be that Michael and Lucifer couldn’t fight anymore, because they like it so much and it keeps them from getting grumpy. But a good rule would be that Lucifer can’t tear Michael’s head off like he looks like he wants to do,” he laughed at that last part, as indeed Lucifer swung an arm around to catch Michael’s head only to find her once again having ducked beneath him. _

_ The Almighty hummed in approval. “Yes, that makes sense. And you want rules?” _

_ “Yes, please!” He twisted around in Her arms to grin up at Her happily. _

_ “Will that get you to go and play with your siblings?” _

_ He paused, thinking about it a moment, before nodding. _

_ “Alright then, let’s see…” She frowned thoughtfully, looking over his head to watch the rest of the angels playing. Staring up at Her, he could see the reflection of Uriel’s stars popping in and out of existence in her eyes, which were completely dark at the time and even purer than the black space that was his older sister’s favorite canvas. “I think that the first, and most important rule, is that you should love everyone. Okay?” _

_ He nodded enthusiastically. “Especially you.” _

_ “Okay,” She laughed, a full-throated laugh that moved Her stomach beneath him and even got Gabriel looking over at them, envious of whatever his baby brother could have done to make Her laugh so. “Love everyone, especially me. Good?” _

_ “Yes, good. What else?” _

_ “More?” She raised Her eyebrows. “You want more?” He nodded again, so with a fond sigh, She continued thinking. After another moment, She said, “Always be loyal, okay? Someday there will be many people, but always be loyal to those you love most, especially these people right here,” She gestured to the young seraphim in front of them, and he nodded, agreeing entirely (after all, who could ever be more important and worth his loyalty than these people? or so he had thought at the time). “And always have faith in me, okay? Know that I will make sure everything turns out all right.” Her voice softened at this, eyes and tone growing more serious, sounding more like She was trying to convince Herself than the little angel who was happily nodding and clapping in her lap. _

_ “Faith!” He said, beaming so much he could see his joy reflected in Her face, just like the newborn stars. He liked the sound of that word. “I will, I will Mother.” _

_ She nodded, looking relieved. “Good. Is that enough rules for you?” _

_ He nodded, then jumped off Her lap and wandered over to where Lucifer and Michael had concluded their match and were lying together, surrounded by stars. _

* * *

Kadmiel bit his lip, unnerved by the memory that kept nagging at the edges of his mind.  _ That had been Abdiel, _ he thought insistently, even as Gabriel’s voice referenced the rule - love especially the Almighty - to justify inducing the pain he felt pulling at his form where Aziraphale was connected to him. His own pain he tried to keep tamped down, afraid his lover would sense it and worry, but from the concern also getting broadcast along their line he could tell he was failing. All the while Gabriel yammered on the other side of the door (he would have called it a prison door, had prisons been a thing yet, and had it been more secure than just Gabriel leaning against the door to his bedchamber) about love and loyalty, faith to their Mother and Lord.

“I don’t know, Gabe,” Kadmiel growled hitting his head not-so-lightly against the door, “this doesn’t seem all that loving to me.”

He could practically hear the sneer in his older brother’s voice. “Oh, it’s loving, just not towards you. Traitors don’t deserve that much.”

“Oh come on!” Kadmiel shouted, and despite himself, he felt his fist slam of its own accord into the door - not that it made any difference. “What’d I do? Share my  _ boundless _ love with another being? Create more of what She calls ‘the best thing in the bloody universe’?”

“She doesn’t say that!” Gabriel shouted, offended.

“Were you there when she made the rule?” Kadmiel replied, and he hoped the eye roll was projected in his voice. To his disappointment, Gabriel fell silent, the only sound a huff and the shifting of his large form against the door. Scowling, Kadmiel turned away and settled to stare broodingly out the window.

“You know, maybe he’s right,” said a soft voice to his right.

Kadmiel’s head snapped away from the window. “What did you just say?”

The angel in question - Kokabiel, another power - shrugged, and seemed to shrink in on himself even more. His wings were practically enveloping him, covering his face, by the time the words he was saying squeaked out - like energy struggling to make its way past exploding atoms and out of the belly of a star.

“Maybe he’s right, and we  _ are _ wrong. After all, if we were right, wouldn’t She be here to free us?”

“If this was wrong we wouldn’t be able to love in the first place, and if somehow that little detail slipped through the cracks She would have eliminated it long ago, or at least it wouldn’t be a pair of rogue angels keeping up locked up now that we’ve been discovered,” Kadmiel snarled, glaring at Kokabiel (as if he could see it). 

The angel didn’t answer, just shifted their wings to better hide their face.

Kadmiel sighed. Walking over to his friend he fell down to his knees, and gently began to pry apart the two pearlescent shields before him. Finally, after much struggle on Kadmiel’s part (but barely a whisper from Kokabiel…  _ How strong can this angel be? _ ), the wings were separated just enough for Kadmiel to peer through the gap between them and meet Kokabiel’s eyes.

“Kokabiel,” he said firmly, “look at me.”

After only a slight hesitation, the angel did so.

“Good. Now, Kokabiel. Do you love Penemuel?”

“Yes,” they whispered, so soft it was barely more than a whisper in space, but without trembling or hesitating. If he reached out, Kadmiel could feel the loving bind extending from Kokabiel in the same direction that Kadmiel’s pointed - towards Bael’s house, where at least Penemuel and Aziraphale were being held. It trembled with pain and passion and was more real in some ways than the solid walls enclosing them.

Kadmiel nodded, smiling at the angel. “Of course you do. And if you ever stopped, or somebody tried to pull it out, it would tear apart your true form and leave you in useless tatters, worse even than Gabriel - and that’s saying something,” he smirked and was rewarded with a little, only slightly choked laugh from Kokabiel and a very satisfying “I heard that!” from through the door. “You see?” He said, getting serious again. “We need this. We need to love like this. And She loves Love, and Loyalty, and bonds between Her children. If She was here we’d be out of here in no time, probably swapping places with my good ol’ brother Gabe.”

“But why isn’t She here?” Kokabiel’s voice had risen, and slowly he retracted his wings so that all that was left of his nervousness was his slouch and the way he hugged his knees, which for an angel was much less drastic.

Kadmiel shrugged, letting the thought slide off him like water did… slide off him like water did on whatever one called those bird-thingies some of the angels were playing around with. “Eh, She gets distracted a lot. And She’s working on creating the Earth dimension, you know, so She probably left for that and wandered off to play with some random thought She had. She’s like that, don’t worry.”

“Be careful what you say, Power,” Gabriel piped up, his sneer evident more as a tone of voice than a facial expression. “You may have been a seraph once, but you chose to step down. You’re lucky She’s kind enough to let you speak of Her like that.”

“Gabriel,” Kadmiel sighed, “come on. You know Her just as well as I do, well enough at least to know that She prefers someone with a little spark then none at all. So if you  _ really _ want to be favorite sibling, I’d suggest you grab some flint.”

“Shut up! You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Gabriel growled. “What you call ‘spark’ the rest of us call treachery.”

“Right. And that’s why you think She’ll be happy to come back and see you’ve locked up… oh, how many angels is it by now?”

Gabriel hesitated, and when he replied his voice was stiff. “More than there should be,” he admitted, hastily adding, “But don’t think this will make us forget about you. You and you’re little cherub caused this entire mess with your, con- confession!” The seraph shut up after that as he started to sputter.  _ Probably for his own good, _ Kadmiel thought.

The power rolled his eyes. “We did not.”

To his surprise, however, Kokabiel shook his head. “No, you did, Kadmiel. If you and Aziraphale hadn’t stepped forward…” he gulped, face twisting in a painful grimace, “I don’t think I would have ever understood what I felt for Penemuel, or even if I did have the courage to admit it.”

“Exactly,” said Gabriel, his voice - now that it was under control - spiteful.

“Hmph,” was Kadmiel’s only reply, and when there was no answer he turned around and continued with his original plan of perching his elbows out the windowsill and staring out into the street before Gabriel’s house, and the square where he remembered Michael and Lucifer (whose houses were close by) would once wrestle and sword fight in the dust. Then they got too busy and drifted apart.  _ I would barely call what we did ‘stepping forward, _ he thought.  _ More like being called out.  _ It had been a long time since all his siblings had been together - him, Abdiel, Lucifer, Michael, Gabriel, and Uriel. And they had all been thoroughly divided over Kadmiel’s own confession, a thought that he still tried to avoid so as to preserve his mental stability.

_ “Oh, sorry,” he’d said, smiling apologetically at Lucifer, Gabriel, and Uriel, who’d asked him to join them on one of their few shared breaks from work. “I actually have plans to meet someone.” _

_ Lucifer smirked at him knowingly enough that Kadmiel’s stomach flipped. “Of course, wouldn’t want to stop you from getting back in time for your little snog session with Aziraphale. Tell me, have you suffocated each other yet?” _

_ Kadmiel’s mouth fell open and he felt his cheeks heat at the same time Gabriel’s face contorted in confusion. The seraph beat him to responding, asking Lucifer plainly, “What is ‘snogging’?” _

_ And at that, Kadmiel was ruined. _

_ Lucifer didn’t notice, however. “Oh, you know,” he said, a glint in his eye as he grinned at the struck dumb Kadmiel, “when you  _ really _ love someone, more than anything else, and you just can’t stay away from them, so you mash your mouths together like sophisticated beings. Isn’t that right, Kadmiel?” _

_ “Ngk,” was all the power could squeak out as he struggled to hide his burning face from his siblings, and his gaze from Uriel and Gabriel’s shocked stares. _

_ “Come on, Lucifer,” Gabriel scoffed. “That isn’t funny at all, look at how ashamed Kadmiel is that you would even suggest such a thing. Honestly, an angel loving another angel that way - in a way without the Almighty - it’s horrible to think about!” _

_ “Quite,” Uriel said, nodding, and through the gaps in his fingers, Kadmiel could see the disgust on her face. For some reason, it made something in his blood start to boil. _

_ “It’s not a joke, I saw them,” Lucifer insisted, and with a too-wide grin he elbowed Kadmiel in the side, forcing him to drop his hands from his face to protect his ribcage. “Isn’t it true, Kadmiel? Tell them.” _

_ “Erm…” _

_ “You don’t have to humor him, Kadmiel,” Gabriel insisted. “We know you would never do something so, so…” _

_ “Preposterous,” Uriel finished, smiling at him thinly. _

_ “Well,” Kadmiel chuckled uneasily, looking uneasily between the stares of the two angels, “I don’t know if the suggestion is enough to warrant that much of a reaction…” _

_ “What do you mean?”Gabriel furrowed his brow, eyes narrowing at him suspiciously. _

_ “Just that, you know,” he stuttered, “if maybe I was, um, meeting Aziraphale, and i- if I did-” he paused, nearly choking on the word, “lo- love him, like that, I don’t think, um, that it would be so bad. Right?” _

_ The two angels were silent, staring at him with wide eyes and (in Gabriel’s rather inelegant case) a dropped jaw. _

_ Next to him, Lucifer nodded assuredly. “Exactly, see? Nothing to be ashamed of brother. Aziraphale is a lovely chap,” grinning, he patted him on the back, maybe just a little too hard. “Mother will be pleased.” _

_ “Actually,” Gabriel frowned deeply, “I don’t think She will be. Kadmiel, I’d like to talk to you and Aziraphale please.” _

_ Shaking his head, Kadmiel stepped back and spread his wings. “Really, I should go.” _

And so Lucifer’s joke had led to a public confrontation as Gabriel yelled at the two angels, Kadmiel yelling right back across the square as other angels gathered and Aziraphale, standing behind him, quietly explained what was happening to the confused bystanders.  _ Idiot, _ Kadmiel thought bitterly of his brother. As soon as more angels had started coming forward, alone and in pairs, confessing to a love that wasn’t of God, Gabriel had had no idea what to do, and all the rest of the seraphim just stood back and let him and Bael lock them up.  _ Idiots. _

All except Lucifer (and Abdiel, who’d been oddly missing for days), though maybe he was the biggest idiot of them all.

_ “Gabe, come on, this is completely ridiculous. Let the poor sod out,” Lucifer wheedled, his loud voice when he finally came for Kadmiel traveling easily through the door. _

_ “No, Lucifer. He can not be allowed to see Aziraphale until She returns.” _

_ “And then what? You need Her to officially give them the okay before they, what, hold hands?” _

_ “I need Her,” Gabriel’s voice neared a growl in his frustration, “to come back and fix them.” _

_ “Fix them?!” Lucifer’s voice was nearly as incredulous as Kadmiel’s own gaze, which stared holes into the back of the door. “What makes you think they need fixing?” _

_ “Love is for the Almighty. Angels shouldn’t love each other more than Her, apart from her. It defeats our entire purpose for being.” _

_ “Loving Aziraphale doesn’t make Kadmiel any less of an angel! If anything, it makes him a better one. He’s definitely more of a ‘being of love’ than you are.” _

_ “ _ That _ isn’t love. That is a twisted perversion of love that distracts him and that he has infected dozens of other angels with.” _

_ “Your love is a twisted perversion,” Lucifer bit back, and if Gabriel hadn’t been so easily provoked Kadmiel would have admonished Lucifer for the  _ incredibly _ poorly constructed insult. But as it was, it was enough to rile Gabriel up, and soon Kadmiel could hear the sounds of a fistfight playing out in front of the door. Soon, the two split up, hissing a few final insults at each other before Lucifer finally left. _

_ “This won’t last, Gabriel!” The morningstar’s words were about as effective as Gabriel’s single brain cell. Gabriel just scoffed, and Kadmiel was in the same exact position he had been in before. _

That was, until Kadmiel heard sounds of a fight coming in through the door. Eyes widening, he whirled around, gaze briefly meeting Kokabiel’s as the angel stood up hopefully. Outside, there was a crash and Gabriel screamed. Then eerie silence. The door creaked open, and Kadmiel’s heart caught in his throat.

“Kadmiel?” A red head of hair poked through the door, and frown lines stretched in the opposite direction as his twin grinned at him in relief. “Oh, thank God.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please comment, and kudos are always appreciated!


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, I never planned to go this long without updating. But the end of the school year and everything the world is going through right now (I live in the US, so if you've been paying attention to the news from here you'll know what I mean) very much distracted me. This chapter, for whatever reason, was also harder than usual for more to write and took longer than most chapters.
> 
> But it's done now, and I'd say it's pretty exciting (for my slow standards at least)! I mean, unless you're Abdiel, to whom I apologize for beating up. Enjoy!

“Oh, don’t thank Her,” Kadmiel grinned back. “She’s been missing for too damn long.”

Abdiel frowned, but he was already stepping aside for his brother to pass through the finally opened door. Opening his mouth, he moved to speak, but Kadmiel had already flown (not actually, but he might as well have) past him to crash into the nervous and slightly bruised angel down the hall.

Abdiel watched as Kadmiel looked Aziraphale over, pushing him out of the initial crushing embrace to inspect him, but only for a moment before the two were practically one again ( _ ha,  _ Abdiel gritted his teeth,  _ isn’t that ironic _ ), Kadmiel cupping his angel’s face between his hands and tracing over his black eye with a thumb.

“What in Her name happened here?” he murmured, and every angel but Aziraphale paused and glanced at him in surprise at the odd mix of tenderness and barely restrained rage all whispered into his soft voice. Where had Abdiel heard that before? Their mother, maybe, in Her voice, but this was different. Even Lucifer, who was preoccupied with dragging Gabriel’s limp body down the hall, hesitated and looked at the two angels just like they all had looked at the first stars, and the first animals - the great, monumental steps that were always the direct work of Her. (Until, it seemed, then.)

Aziraphale, for his part, didn’t bat an eye. He smiled wide, wrapping his arms around his partner’s neck and brushing his fingers through the threads of hair that had tangled since they’d last seen each other. “Oh, it’s nothing. I managed to get a good hit on Gabriel when he pushed you down, but Bael got me back for it. You’ll be pleased to know though that I did knock him out rescuing you.”

Kadmiel grinned back, giving Aziraphale a quick peck with a flush. “My hero,” he teased, though his gaze sobered a little as he dropped the other angel’s face. “Though seriously, my brother and his sidekick are utter wankers.”

Aziraphale hummed in agreement, looking sheepish. “I’d say I’d be hard pressed to disagree.”

They two angels grinned at each other, and Abdiel swallowed the lump forming in his throat. Looking away from them, he made to follow Lucifer as he dragged Gabriel around a corner and plopped him down into a chair in his home’s front room (pointedly far away from the reuniting lovers). At the impact, Gabriel groaned, and within moments he was doubled over with his head cradled in his hands.

“So much for avoiding a fight,” Abdiel said dryly as his brother slowly recovered. 

Next to him Lucifer just shrugged. “Oh well. Good for Aziraphale, though. I didn’t think he had it in him.”

“He’s a cherub,” Abdiel frowned, giving his brother a look. “He’s literally made to fight.”

“Maybe officially,” Lucifer said, but he didn’t elaborate. Abdiel looked away, glancing back towards the hall where he could still feel his twin’s presence connected to him - but faintly, even fainter than before he had left. 

Suddenly Gabriel’s head was up, distracting him. The archangel was looking directly at Abdiel.

“Where have you been? We needed you.” The angel’s voice was heavy with disapproval, the same disapproval Abdiel had watched countless lesser angels shrivel under. He felt it pressure him, but not nearly to the extent it had when he had been younger and Gabriel’s strength as his older sibling still heavy on his mind. He’d outgrown it since then. Being the second youngest of the first brood, though, an unfortunate middle child who only ever held sway over Abdiel, Gabriel hadn’t. 

“Needed me to lock Kadmiel up? What were you thinking?”

“What were  _ you _ thinking!” Gabriel scowled. “Coming in here, letting that cherub attack me. Who do you think I am?”

“I think you are grossly mistaken.”

“In defending the word of the Almighty?” Gabriel’s eyes steeled over. “You were with Her when She made that rule, Abdiel. ‘Love nobody but Her’. It is your job to ensure that the angels keep their faith in Her! Yet you disappear, letting that twin of your’s go and betray Her - us, really.”

“The Almighty never said ‘Love nobody but Her’,” Abdiel said, voice quieting. He wanted to pull out his hair,  _ this was idiotic!  _ All of this, just because his brother had misunderstood. “She said to love everybody, and  _ I _ added  _ ‘especially you!’ _ , and She thought I was being cute and agreed. It was never a serious part of the law.”

Lucifer snorted. “If you can count that as a law. We don’t have to follow every guideline She sets out, we can do what we want.”

“Lucifer,” Abdiel gritted his teeth. “Not now.” 

But it was too late. Gabriel was staring at their oldest brother with wide eyes. “What are you saying, brother?”

Lucifer smirked. “That we can make our own decisions. We don’t have to follow Her words all the time, She created us to be our own beings.”

Gabriel’s eyes narrowed, turning icy, and the sick feeling in Abdiel’s stomach intensified. Anticipating the storm he backed up a few steps, leaving his two older brothers to fight without him in the middle.

“I knew it, Luci. Your head is growing too big, you think you’re better than Her!”

“I never said-”

“You do, and that’s why you’re siding with these poor excuses for angels.” Gabriel was standing now, and his purple eyes would have been enough to glare holes into any other angel he was fighting with, even Abdiel himself or Bael. “You don’t honestly believe they’re in love, do you? You’re just taking your chance to pull some weak links away from Her path.”

Lucifer gaped at him, the smug confidence completely wiped off his face in favor of shock. “What the… what are you talking about Gabe? I’m just pointing out what She created us to be. We’re our own beings,  _ She _ says so. We can make our rules, we can choose who we love. I’m helping out these angels because it’s  _ right _ , and because nobody wants you and your crazy friends locking up angels!”

“We’re not just locking them up. We’re going to  _ fix _ them.”

“Hey, who are they talking about fixing?” Kadmiel was behind him, voice just above a whisper as he peered around Abdiel to the fighting angels.

“Huh?” Abdiel blinked, turning and staring at Kadmiel for a moment. He hadn’t even  _ felt  _ the angel come up behind him!

His twin raised an eyebrow. “Those two idiots. What are they yelling about.”

Abdiel grimaced, looking away and pushing the disturbing sensation of not feeling Kadmiel to the back of his mind. “Gabriel’s accusing Lucifer of trying to divide the angels, pull them away from Her path, by siding with the angels that are in love.”

The Power snorted, crossing his arms. “That’s ridiculous. Luci isn’t smart enough for that, for one. And, he may not hang on Her every word like some people-” he smirked, jabbing Abdiel pointedly in the ribs, “-but we all know he loves Her.”

“Yeah, I don’t know…” Abdiel furrowed his brow, the words from his earlier conversation with Lucifer reappearing in his mind. “Gabriel isn’t the only one worried.”

Kadmiel gaped at him. “What, you think Lucifer is going to corrupt the angels and go against Her?”

The look on his brother’s face was of complete astonishment, and Abdiel felt his face flush in embarrassment. “Of course not! Just, I don’t know, he’s said some things. He,” Abdiel lowered his voice and leaned towards Kadmiel, as if anyone could overhear their conversation over the nearby sounds of fighting, “he says that we’re  _ equal to Her _ .”  _ He thinks we should have more power, _ he didn’t add.  _ He doesn’t think She can or should do it all. He thinks She’s done some bad things behind our backs. _

_ And I may be wondering if he’s right. _

Kadmiel frowned, and for a moment he just studied Lucifer and Gabriel as they fought. Then he shrugged. “Okay, a bit disturbing. But no big deal. Luci has always been a little, eh,” he held up his hand flat and wobbled it side to side in an iffy motion, then gave Abdiel a look that said,  _ get what I mean? _

Abdiel shrugged. He did.

“Hundreds!” Lucifer suddenly shouted, drawing both their attentions back to the argument before them. “We’re talking about hundreds, maybe thousands of angels here, Gabe!” Both Abdiel and Kadmiel froze, and it was like a bucket of ice water had been dumped on them. Behind them, Aziraphale came up and hugged Kadmiel from behind, watching over his shoulder, and the other two angels they’d freed came up and craned their heads to see as well. Lucifer continued, “Angels from every choir, your own siblings. You’re talking about imprisoning and breaking the hearts of as much as a third of the Host!”

_ A third. _ Abdiel’s heart beat loudly in his ears, and through the chill settling in on his form he thought he could feel every movement of blood in his body.  _ A third.  _ “How can it be so many?” He said it unintentionally, the words leaving him as little more than an exhale.

Aziraphale answered him. “Because love is a good thing, and She decreed it.”

At the same time, Gabriel shouted back, “If a third of them have done so, then they have betrayed the Almighty, and we will respond how we need to!”

Abdiel flinched, the juxtaposition of the phrases lashing at him. Glancing to his twin and his partner he grimaced, shame pricking him. Of course, it was love, and it was good. He had never seen anyone look at someone with as much love as Kadmiel did Aziraphale. Yet…  _ yet it means he’s leaving me. It means I’ll stay clinging by Her side while he finally leaves me - leaves us - for good. _ Could that be good? Rationally, Abdiel said yes. Yet he still recoiled at the soft words traded between his twin and his partner.

In front of them, the argument continued to escalate, until eventually it seemed like something in the angels next to him snapped.

“I can’t listen to this any more,” an angel, the one who had been imprisoned with Kadmiel, sighed. Abdiel was pretty sure their name was Kokabiel, but they were definitely a power, and Abdiel didn’t spend much time with second sphere angels.

Besides him, Kadmiel nodded. “Let’s go.” Gripping Azirphale’s hand, the redhead led the cherub around Lucifer and Gabriel - who didn’t even pause or notice their exit - and the other pair trailed behind them. Seeing them leave, Abdiel gave his brothers one more apprehensive glance before following.

By the time he got outside the four angels were already spreading their wings. He blinked, brow furrowing slightly. “Where are you going?”

Kadmiel paused and looked over his shoulder at Abdiel. “To break the other angels out, of course.”

“Other angels?”

Kokabiel nodded, and his hand moved then to grip Penemuel’s beside him. “We’re not sure, they caught us four first, but I’m certain I saw them grabbing other angels.”

“And you hear Lucifer,” Penemuel spoke up, “as many as a third of the angels are admitting to it. They can’t be letting all of them walk free.”

“But Gabriel and Bael-”

“Gabriel and Bael have friends, Ab,” Kadmiel said, voice grim. “They have followers, trust me. Most of the seraphim are letting them do what they want, and I know a large posse of angels that will do whatever the pair tell them to.”

“Fine, of course,” Abdiel nodded, “but we don’t have to go and fight to break them out. Just let me fetch Her-”

“ _ She’s _ not coming.” Kadmiel’s voice was like rock, stern with a resoluteness Abdiel had never heard in him before, had never felt as a part of himself even when they were together. It froze him.

“Well, we don’t know that,” Aziraphale frowned, glancing at Kadmiel. “She could still be. But,” he added hesitantly, his gaze traveling pointedly away from Kadmiel’s unhappy expression and toward Abdiel, “we can’t wait for Her, of course.”

“Not ‘of course’,” Abdiel shook his head, and at the angel’s aggressive expressions (at least, on Kadmiel and Kokabiel’s parts) he held up his hands. “Just let me get Lucifer. We’ll find Her and She’ll fix it.”

“Fine, do what you want,” Kadmiel’s frown twisted into something closer to a snarl, and as he turned away Abdiel groped for it but it was as if their connection was completely gone. The Power prepared to take off, and the motion hid his sharp face and red hair that were so like Abdiel’s behind a pair of broad white wings - only two, smaller than Abdiel’s, a Power’s wings, now with dried blue and red flowers woven into some of the feathers to make them match Aziraphale’s. “We don’t need you. I’m going.”

Without turning back to even show him his face, Kadmiel took off, and Abdiel felt something in him break. The anchor that had once held the string keeping them together, that had lately been holding just a limp and cut off thread, finally fell from the rest of him. Before him, Penemuel and Kokabiel took off, and with a brief apologetic look Aziraphale took off after them. Abdiel was left alone - truly alone, for the first time in his existence - standing in front of Gabriel’s house.

* * *

“They what? Good for them.”

“Please, Lucifer, we have to stop them.”

But Lucifer wasn’t listening, the fire in his eyes already sparked. The argument with Gabriel was over - the archangel having taken off to look for Bael with nothing resolved - and the firstborn was itching for a fight.

“And why’s that?”

Abdiel purposefully stood between him and the door, his hands up defensively just as they had been when trying to talk down the four other angels. “They’re outnumbered, and rash, and Kadmiel’s angry. Something bad is going to happen, please, we have to get Her and put an end to it.”

“Abdiel,” Lucifer gave him a sharp look, and Abdiel was sent back to the days when he’d been a newborn and Lucifer was showing him around Heaven for the very first time, watching his shock and awe and correcting him with exasperation as he wandered away or got things wrong. “You haven’t been here. But I’ve looked. Gabriel has looked. Michael has looked.  _ We’ve all looked. _ She isn’t coming.”

“But-”

“No.”

Abdiel was silent, standing firm in the doorway even as he avoided his brother’s gaze.

“Don’t you want to help Kadmiel?” Lucifer asked, and his voice sounded incredulous.

Abdiel stiffened. “Of course.”

“Yet you’re still standing by Her.”

His eyes widened, and his head snapped up to stare at Lucifer as if of its own accord. “Why wouldn’t I? She will fix this and help Kadmiel.”

Lucifer’s jaw tightened, and he looked at Abdiel like it pained him. “Are you so sure about that? Have you forgotten what you saw?”

“I…” Abdiel felt his jaw drop, and snapping it shut he swallowed loudly. Lucifer’s stare was piercing, pinning him against the doorframe he was blocking.

“She saw something She didn’t like, Ab, and She locked it up. What makes you so sure She won’t do the same now to the angels responsible when She realizes things have gotten out of control?”

“ _ What? _ How could you even ask that?” Abdiel gaped at him, completely stricken. “You said it yourself. She created us to be our own people, to love-”

“I said that to Gabriel, to win an argument,” Lucifer snapped, and Abdiel stepped back as the morningstar’s silent fury started to heat up into something more livid. “Who knows what She created us to be. I don’t even know what to think anymore, not after all this and then what you told me. Faith isn’t so easy for all of us, Abdiel!”

_ It isn’t easy for me either, _ Abdiel wanted to say back, but instead, nothing came out but a half choked exhale and garble of high pitched syllables. Lucifer kept staring at him, face never relaxing, and when he didn’t respond his oldest brother nodded.

“Right then. I’m going to help out. And then we’re going to figure out what in Heaven this could all mean, alright?”

He didn’t wait for an answer, shouldering aside the shellshocked Abdiel with ease and then opening and closing the door with a slam. Abdiel felt the wind hit his face in an angry burst, and then it all stilled into silence.  _ Oh Mother, _ he thought, dropping his weight heavily against the wall,  _ what is happe- _

“ _ Abdiel _ !”

The door back opened again with a loud  _ whoosh, _ making way for Lucifer’s even louder voice to bombard his ears. Starting, Abdiel jumped away before looking back at Lucifer. “What-” he stopped. Lucifer’s anger was gone, replaced by fear. Abdiel’s stomach dropped.  _ Never _ had he seen his eldest brother afraid.  _ Never _ had Lucifer turned away from his anger so quickly.

“The city is on fire!” he shouted, and Abdiel just stared at him.  _ No, that can’t be true. _ Lucifer’s voice, continuing on, was growing small and faraway.  _ I misheard him, yeah, that’s it. It’s impossible for Heaven to- _

But then, giving up on explaining, Lucifer grabbed his arm and hauled Abdiel out into the street with him. Taking his shoulders, the morningstar turned him to face the direction that Kadmiel and the other angels had gone in.

And he hadn’t misheard. Orange flames rose up behind the buildings of the residential streets, and if he strained hard enough shouts and screams could be heard rising above the flames like heated air. 

Heaven was on fire.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... from a little taste of ineffable husbands fluff to the Silver City catching on fire. I can't claim the riots going on right now did not contribute to that idea, but it is purposeful! The seeds of the Fall are getting sown, and not just in Lucifer and Abdiel's minds.
> 
> That being said, I hope you enjoyed! Comments and kudos are always appreciated.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well... I just wrote this. I think that is all I have to say. Just know this probably won't be the last time this happens ;)
> 
> I would say enjoy, but... you'll see.

Followers of Gabriel and Bael had locked up a huge group of angels in an office building right in front of the main square. They were still rushing out even as Lucifer and Abdiel got there, the last few stranglers dodging the collapsing ceiling and lashing flames as the building began the process of burning to dust around them. All around the city places where angels - associated and not associated with the seraphim that started it all - had imprisoned other angels were catching fire, their walls crumbling under the sparking rage of the angels who were clung to their new lovers and those who were watching their friends do so. Flying above it all, Abdiel floated on the warm updrafts and watched as the fires spread, clawing into the air at random and spreading madly wherever they found a flammable foothold. Between the choking smoke and the glaring lights and the ever-changing shadows, it was impossible to see, and Abdiel’s eyes watered from strain as he tried to track the angel’s who seemed to flicker in and out of existence as they dashed through the pulsing streets. Angels were running and screaming, flying and - if they were unfortunate enough to catch a spark with their wings - falling, some holding each other as they ran away, others chasing other angels down and wrestling in the sooty streets ( _ For the first time not just playing,  _ Abdiel thought numbly). A few, like him, were simply gliding over on the updrafts, coughing through their elbows and wiping away tears to try and see family and friends. Most of the angels like him eventually ducked down to join the fight or to grab an injured friend and fly away, but Abdiel did nothing. He just watched, let himself be carried by the force of the smokey air as it rose and buffeted side to side by the explosions of emotion that were rippling through the city and the hearts of the angels struggling in it.

Two angels ran out of separate office buildings, both some of the first to burn, and crashed into each other’s arms. A bursting bubble of love swept Abdiel to the left.

Three angels ended their chase of one other and pushed them to the ground. The two third sphere angels held the struggling four-faced cherub down while their peer beat them. Abdiel gasped as he was blown backward by a rising wall of hate and fear.

_ And there. _ Abdiel jerked towards his twin and watched his grim face as he snapped his fingers and summoned a ball of fire, which he promptly threw into the window of the building where Gabriel had his office. Within a heartbeat, the flame was roaring out the window again, too large to be contained as it ate its way through the building and onto the next. Abdiel felt no emotion emanating from his brother as Kadmiel watched the building crumble and then took off, flame in hand, searching for his next target.

The seraph looked away, only to catch sight of at least three other angels all doing the same things. 

The fire only grew larger. The recognizable streets and buildings shrank. The screaming stayed the same.

A lesser angel and a cherub cried together just a few meters in the air as the angel struggled to lift their friend, wings burnt down to stumps, away from the waving fingers of a lit building. With each beat of their two little wings, they ebbed, sobbing uncontrollably as they fell closer and closer to dropping the cherub into the flames. Breath catching, Abdiel swooped down and took one of the cherub’s arms from the little angel.

“I got it, just fly!”

The angel nodded, glancing at him with wide eyes before refocusing on the grey sky above them and beating hard. Together they lifted the pretty much unconscious cherub out of the worst of the heat and managed to carry them to a field in one of the city’s parks, one already filled with other injured.

“Did you leave anyone else behind, do you know of anyone else that might need help?” Abdiel asked, shaking the angel’s shoulder as they stared, half-delirious, at their friend.

They started, snapping suddenly back into the present. “Uh, uh, no. No, we were the last ones out.”

“Good,” Abdiel nodded, smiling at the angel as they finally focused on him for the first time.

Their eyes widened, and they stepped back. “You… you set fire to the building!”

Abdiel’s gaped at them. “What? No, no, I didn’t…” he swallowed, the uncomfortable truth rising from where he’d hidden it to his tongue. “That, that was my twin.”

The angel scowled at him anyway and plopped down onto the ground, where they glared at him and picked at the burns on their feet and ankles. “That disgusting excuse for an angel, what does he think he’s doing? I don’t care at all who he loves, neither does Kerubiel, and we didn’t do anything! We kept on working, just like She told us to, and then he is there shooting a fireball at us! We sat at our desks and now Kerubiel will lose her wings.” The angel glared at him bitterly even as they blinked rapidly at the tears streaming down their face. Their teeth and the tear tracks down their cheeks were white, as searing hot as their words and distinct against the rest of their ash-covered form. “I didn’t have a care for this squabble of yours before,” the angel hissed at him through gritted teeth, “but that brother of yours will  _ pay. _ ”

“I-”

“ _ Get out of here! _ ”

Abdiel nodded mutely and stumbled away, whirling around like he was drunk on star stuff and barely able to stand and then tearing his way through the staring crowd of blackened, burned, and angry and panicked angels. He ran a few steps out into the street, then beat his wings and took off, just barely missing the flames of a burning building as he veered sharply up into the cloudy sky that had never, ever, been cloudy before.

A searing hot liquid burned his eyes and cheeks, blurring his vision and sending his heart beating in his ears so that, when he looked down again, all he could see was a swirling maelstrom of fire and ash and streets and screaming, all of it writhing in agony in time with the beat of his heart.  _ Ba-dum, ba-dum, ba-dum.  _ Ah- _ ah,  _ ah- _ ah, _ ah- _ ah, _ went the screams. Cra- _ ack, _ cra- _ ack _ , cra- _ ack _ when the splintering skeletons of the buildings they had built.  _ Ba- _ the fires grew two steps,  _ dum- _ a tiny group of angels, a white splotch in his vision, dumped water on the fire and it went back a step.  _ Ba- _ two steps forward,  _ dum-  _ one step back.  _ Ba- _ three steps forward,  _ dum-  _ half a step back. He watched it all, panic gripping his chest and strangling his lungs, sending his heart beating louder and faster ( _ badumbadumbadumbadum _ ) and his breaths shallower and shallower. Wobbling in the air he saw a fireball explode the building beneath him, rocking him back and forth with violent gusts of air and pelting his ground-facing face and stomach with bits of stone and wood and glass.

“Argh!” he screamed, wings subconsciously curling around him as he rolled into a half-ball to clutch his now bleeding calf. And then he was falling, falling fast, the world throbbing  _ badumbadumbadum _ around him, his vision swimming, processing only the general upward motion of the rest of the world as he moved down and then a sudden jerk into downwardness as he rose, carried by something too solid to be air through and above the heat and the smoke. Gasping, he clung onto whoever had him in their arms, screwing his eyes shut against the smokey air rushing past them and the dizziness that wanted to overtake him. The arms gripped him tighter and kept going.

Suddenly they stopped, and Abdiel’s stomach continued up a ways before the elastic stretched far enough and it was snapped back into his abdomen. He tried to swallow, couldn’t, and curled into a coughing ball instinctively.

The angel carrying him cursed. “Dammit, Ab, stop breathing you idiot! Stop it or I’ll drop you!”

Giving one last cough, Abdiel obeyed, and after a moment wrung enough strength out of himself to open back up his eyes and look up.

Lucifer was looking out over the city, face grave. Convection currents of air buffeted around them, carrying dead ash and living embers and blowing them all into Lucifer’s hair, turning it into a wild and flailing crop of gold above the morningstar’s stony face. He was frowning, usually beautiful features turned sharp and icy as they froze over the burning city. He looked almost like something frozen and dead, like the faces of the angels’ many failed experiments with animals as they struggled and fell short of living, their designs not quite right. Only those animals died in confusion and with barely any sentience afforded to them. Lucifer’s eyes were like knives, sharply intelligent, and aware of everything that was happening before them, steely even as Abdiel could see the bloody grief that was dripping from them. Irrationally, Abdiel suddenly felt a wave of fear of his brother, hovering there over all the destruction with embers in his hair and that look in his eye - that look that said “I don’t care” on the outside, and sobbed behind the curtain. His stomach twisted, and if he wasn’t sure he would fall should he try to leave the angel’s hold he would have struggled with all his might to get away; he could just barely repress it with the fear of falling into the inferno below.  _ This isn’t my brother, _ the words reached the back of his throat and then stopped, completely choked by fear and smoke.  _ What has happened to him? Heartless and crying.  _ The sight tore at his chest, hurt even more than the sight of Kadmiel burning down Gabriel’s building.

And then, deeper down, he felt something in his true form flinch.  _ This is not good, _ he felt.  _ Luci will… he will be here again. He can’t be here. Him being here… _ he didn’t know. But his brother in that setting felt deeply disturbing, like a sign of a storm to come whose details he couldn’t decipher.

Then Lucifer blinked, ruining the stony image, and looked down at him. “Are you alright?”

He had to shout above the sound of the wind and the roaring flames, and clutching him tighter Abdiel shivered at the sound. It almost sounded like something else, something more threatening.

He didn’t voice this, just nodded, a rock in his throat.

“Good,” Lucifer shouted again and grimaced as a cinder-choked wind slammed into them. His steady position in the sky briefly wobbled, and for a moment Abdiel feared they were going to fall before his brother’s wings steadied them again. “I’ve been patrolling the streets, nobody is trapped anymore. Everywhere they were being held has been burned down, as well as some places Gabe, Bael, and their people frequented. And a lot more. I think all the angels are out of the fire, though, out of the city center or in one of the parks.”

As he finished talking a large group of angels carrying a sagging tarp came into view hovering over the buildings around the square, and with a massive, undecipherable shout half of them dropped their holds on the tarp and it fell, releasing its load of water (and a few clumps of wriggling something Abdiel thought might have been experimental fish). A percent of the fire hissed and died beneath them, and then they disappeared back in the direction of the lake.

“They won’t be able to stop it!” Abdiel yelled. “There isn’t enough water made!”

“I know.” When he looked up, Abdiel saw Lucifer’s face had returned to its grim stoniness, and he looked away before he could become afraid again.

“What can we-”

_ “WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!” _

An ear-splitting screech cut him off, and starting Abdiel brought his hands up to cover his ears. Lucifer followed suit with his two small top wings. Suddenly, like a switch had been flipped, the shouting and the screaming and the sobbing that had become a part of the background noise of the fires all stopped, and aside from the crackling of the flames, all was silent.

Then, the smoke in the sky dissipated and was replaced with something Abdiel had never seen: clouds. Dark, grey, massive clouds, practically apparating into the sky above them. Again, like a lever had been pulled, they opened their floodgates and pelted the entire inner city, everything that had been burning, with a slamming fist of water that instantly drowned the tears the angels had been shedding. Still flying Lucifer stumbled under the weight of it, and Abdiel shrieked as they dropped a full five meters towards the steaming river of a ground before the firstborn managed to regain control. Flapping wildly they swung back and forth in the downpour, gripping each other and squinting into the rain at the glowing ball of color and energy that was at the center of it all.

_ “I LEFT FOR A FEW DAYS, AND THIS IS WHAT YOU MAKE OF YOURSELVES?” _

She was shrieking, Her angelic form tossed aside in favor of a visceral, rageful ball of matter and energy writhing in the center of Her storm. Staring at it the two seraphim flinched, barely able to stand seeing it.

_ “HOW COULD THIS HAPPEN? WHO?” _

As the fires sputtered and died the rain subsided, leaving Abdiel and Lucifer drenched and struggling to stay up in the air without the help of the updrafts. Abdiel felt the stinging of the cut across his calf start to fade as well, and somewhere he thought it was probably time to leave Lucifer’s arms, but watching his mother (for that’s what She boiled down to when everything but his basest thoughts left him) rage he suddenly wanted nothing more than to shrink and cower in the relative safety of his big brother once again. As it stood, he didn’t move, and perhaps thinking the same thing Lucifer flapped away from Her and gripped him tighter. If they had been fledglings still, Abdiel was sure Lucifer would have turned his little brother’s head away from the sight.

_ “WHO? WHO BURNED THIS CITY?” _

She screamed on, and the air around then pulsed as her anger left her in waves that rippled the very fabric of Heaven. The tension warped and heated the air, and down in the streets Abdiel was sure there crouched lesser angels cowering and weeping silently in the presence of such wrath.

But not a single angel stepped forward.

Until Kadmiel and Gabriel appeared above the skyline, wrestling and taking turns pushing each other towards Her.

Breaking apart panting, they both simultaneously pointed at the other. “It was him!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And people think angels are so much better than us... *chuckles sadly*
> 
> Comments and kudos are always appreciated! Tell me how I did please.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay, another chapter about Kadmiel! We didn't get very far in this chapter, but this is a turning point and one Kadmiel had a lot to say about. Enjoy!

How dare he. _How dare he!_ Kadmiel fumed, red leaking over the edges of his vision as Gabriel pointed at him before their mother. The bastard was smirking at him, eyes gleaming with a victorious smugness even as they flapped above a burning city, both of their wings stained with ash and dirt and dulled golden ichor. 

“It was him!” The archangel repeated, this time alone, staring at Her with expectancy. “He and the cherub Aziraphale incited betrayal among your angels! We tried to imprison them, but Lucifer let Kadmiel out and he burned the city in retaliation.”

The bright, swirling mass of light and energy that was the Almighty reddened and pulsed, and despite Her not having eyes in that form Kadmiel got the distinct impression that She had turned an angry glare toward him.

_“IS THIS TRUE, KADMIEL?”_

The Power flinched at the voice, a tremor running up his spine. For a moment he faltered, wings weakening in their fight to keep him hovering among the strong gusts created by the steam of the rapidly cooling wreckage in the city beneath them. Gabriel’s smirk widened at the sight, and Kadmiel clenched his jaw.

“No,” he replied coolly, refusing to look at his brother. “We did nothing wrong! Gabriel imprisoned us and others all over the city. All we did was try to free the others after Luci let us out.” _And yes, we did that by burning the prisons,_ but he didn’t say that. “The fires started as accidents,” he said instead. “Then Gabriel’s people started making more, so we did too.”

The rageful whirl that was their mother slowed for a moment and Her harsh glare dulled. After a few moments the glare had fully died down, and where its center had been mere moments before She was back, face still stern as she flapped a few meters away from them but bearable to look at again. Both Kadmiel and Gabriel sighed in relief.

“Come down, both of you,” She ordered, and immediately the two angels moved to follow Her down into the square.

The city center was a mess. All of the buildings on the block had burned down to little more than the skeletons of their foundations, the office building that had held the most captured angels in it having been the first to catch fire. Debris littered the entire square, ash and cinders and the burnt husks of wood and stone scattered across the ground so that She and the angels walking there had to pick their way carefully through it. Gabriel coughed at the steam and smoke intermingling in the air, and Kadmiel scowled at a falling ember that landed near his foot and crushed it, still glowing. She moved through it all like a breeze, brushing past and not looking at the charred remains of Her city buildings nor the faces of Her children that were peeking at Her around corners and between the new holes in blocks. When She finally paused and turned to focus on something it was Kadmiel, and her gaze was sad.

“What sin did you commit, Kadmiel?” Her voice had lowered substantially, surprising him with its softness. He could barely hear Her above the rustling of angels at the edges of the square and the sounds of burnt and weakened timbers cracking under their own weight, so he stepped forward to speak to Her.

He did not bow his head, only furrowed his brow in confusion, and for it he felt the glare of Gabriel on the back of his skull.

“What is a sin? Is that what you were creating while you were away? Where were you, we looked everywhere.” _We needed you_ , he didn’t say, but all the angels heard it as his voice cracked on the last word.

In response, She flinched - away from him! - features curling and screwing up in pain. Quickly She shook Her head, Her swallow loud as Her eyes screwed shut. “No, no, I am sorry, child. I wasn’t here, you couldn’t have found me. I was working on Earth.” Kadmiel’s brow furrowed again, and around them, confused angels muttered their questions too softly to be heard as anything about an indecipherable murmur. She heard them all though and shook Her head. “It’s a discussion for another time. But sin… I thought it would be longer.”

“Longer until what?” Kadmiel took another step forward, and he was almost close enough to Her to reach out and touch Her. “Mother, ignore what Gabriel says, we haven’t done anything wrong. I-”

“You haven’t?” She raised Her eyebrows, adding skepticism to Her many layers of pain.

“No,” Kadmiel shook his head. “We’ve done nothing.”

“Hey, you can’t lie to Her, Kadmiel!” Gabriel stepped forward, and with a gasp, Kadmiel felt his brother grab him on the shoulder and jerk him backward, away from Her. “Tell Her, tell Her what you did!”

“Nothing! We haven’t done anything!” Kadmiel refused to look at Gabriel, just focused a wide-eyed stare at Her. “Please,” he said, and even to him it sounded like a beg. “Tell him we haven’t done anything wrong.”

She looked at him sadly, and his stomach dropped. “And what did you do?”

For the first time since everything had started, Kadmiel hesitated. Nerves ran his blood cold, and he twitched under Gabriel’s hand. He was right. He knew he was right. _Love is right - isn’t it?_ Suddenly, under the weight of Her stare, he wasn’t sure. She’d been gone, She’d been working on something else while they all quarreled like children. While he Fell in Love. She didn’t know. _If I’m wrong, She doesn’t know._ He could see it in Her eyes, She wasn’t ready to believe Gabriel yet. She still Loved him. _But w_ _hat if She stops?_

Unconsciously he felt himself turning to look behind him, following that link with barely a thought until he was staring at Aziraphale, who was hovering at the edge of the square. The angel hadn’t joined him in the burning, preferring to guide the angels out of the buildings once the locked doors had been burnt and direct the traffic to safe places, ensuring that everyone made it to a safe place. Kadmiel loved him for it, for no matter how justified he thought it was the thought of Aziraphale burning the city in his rage made him sick (his own actions, reflecting, made him a bit sick). As he looked back and caught Aziraphale’s eye the cherub smiled at him, lips gentle, and waved. His hands were slightly burnt, and that hurt, but not a single cinder or ember dared to touch his downy white hair. Glancing at Gabriel - exhausted, ash streaked, face steely in his rage - Kadmiel thought his own cherub looked much more angelic than the archangel standing next to him. Looking back at Aziraphale, he asked a silent question and nodding the other angel started walking toward them.

She paused, looking away from Kadmiel and to Aziraphale with surprise.

“Aziraphale,” She said, “what is it?”

“I,” the cherub started as he reached them, then hesitated. Meeting Kadmiel’s gaze, he took the Power’s hand and laced their fingers together, gently pulling his love away from Gabriel’s reach. “ _We_ want to ask if this is alright.”

She looked at Aziraphale with confusion, but before anyone could elaborate Kadmiel piped up, courage restored with the feeling of that hand in his own, “And what is a ‘sin’?”

“What?” She blinked, turning wide eyes at him.

“You asked me,” Kadmiel said, “if I did a sin. I don’t know. What is that?”

“Stop avoiding the question,” Gabriel scowled at the two of them. “The Almighty asked you what you did, _answer._ ”

“Gabriel,” She held up a hand in his direction, but didn’t look at him, “please shut up.”

“I-”

“Kadmiel has a point,” Aziraphale cut the archangel off. “What _is_ a sin?”

Nobody spoke again, and once She was sure that She wouldn’t be interrupted the Almighty looked at the two of them and opened her mouth, face grave, “It’s a new thing, a nonexistent thing right now - I think. It is something that you angels will create. It…” She trailed off, taking on an expression that Kadmiel couldn’t read. “It’s a crime. A crime against me.”

The two of them didn’t answer, and all the angels in and around the square fell silent. Kadmiel felt himself gap, shocked. _A crime… a crime against Her. An action against her. Impossible._ Yet She said it would happen, and that they would do it. She was asking, face more sober than he’d ever seen it, if they had _already_ done it. He couldn’t answer; he couldn’t wrap his mind around such a thing.

Aziraphale, thankfully, answered for him. “No!” he gasped, jaw also dropping as the weight of the words fell on him. “N- never, that’s impossible.” Eyes wide he looked to Kadmiel, who couldn’t even catch hold of his tongue to articulate a proper sentence.

“Erm, ngk… I, uh,” he flinched, then shook his head. “N-no, ‘course not, us?”

She studied them carefully, face not relaxing, and Kadmiel felt his pulse quicken. _If Gabriel convinced Her, if She thinks-_

“We love you, we do everything you ask of us happily!” Aziraphale kept talking, his voice growing higher and faster but still meeting Her question when Kadmiel could not. “We would never go against your wishes, and I think you know this. Not unless falling in love is that, what did you say? a sin. That’s all we did, that’s all we ever tried to do, quietly too! If, if falling in love is a sin then we have sinned. But that’s…” he trailed off, gaze locked to the floor as he gripped Kadmiel’s hand, “I don’t want to believe that.”

It felt like a long time in which She didn’t answer. Kadmiel didn’t dare look up, just focused with all his might on Aziraphale’s hand in his, on the feel of his angel sweating and trembling just as much as he was as they waited for Her response. His heart pounded, drowning his ears in the sound of rushing blood, narrowing his consciousness to include nothing but his heart, his veins, Aziraphale’s hand, and Her stare. The moments dragged on and Kadmiel’s stomach began to feel sick. _What if She says no? What if Gabriel was right?_ As horrifiying as the thought was. _What if She is angry with us?_ His thoughts loomed large and bared their teeth at him, Her silence giving them room to grow. He gulped.

 _That’s it,_ he thought. _This is it, we’re done for. I’ll never get to hold Aziraphale’s hand again._ He swallowed a lump growing at the back of his throat and finally forced himself to look up and meet Her gaze. He saw it, and he released a breath. _I’ll never get to kiss Aziraphale again,_ he told himself, preparing. Next to him, Aziraphale squeezed his hand tighter, and Kadmiel held on like it would be the last time he could. Kadmiel told himself that it was.

She swallowed too, tears making Her eyes glisten as She opened Her mouth to answer. Kadmiel readied himself.

“You… you two are in love?”

Kadmiel hesitated. Her voice was uncertain, trembled with nearly as much anxiety as he was feeling. “Um,” he looked at Aziraphale, who looked equally surprised. “Yes?”

She fell silent again, and then after another horrifically long moment nodded and looked at Kadmiel. “Right,” She said, voice barely above a whisper. “You _do_ Love him more than me, don’t you, child?”

 _Yes,_ he thought to answer, but _no no no no no no no!_ That wasn’t the takeaway! _That_ couldn’t be what She saw, not that, anything but that. _Yes,_ he wanted to say, _yes I Love you but I Love him, I Love him, it’s good, please it’s so good and I love him. Don’t…_

_Don’t take it away._

_Do anything but take him away._

He said none of that though, just nodded. Croaked, “I Love you too.”

“We both do,” Aziraphale echoed, voice barely more put together.

She stared at them, an indescribable expression on Her face. Together the two angels clutched each other’s hands, even as Her gaze lowered downward to stare at those. Tears backed up the dam behind Kadmiel’s eyes, threatening to burst as She stared.

But then, finally, _surprisingly,_ She nodded. “Of course, you do.” For the first time since She’d arrived, She looked around, studying the angels clinging to the edges of the squares. “A lot of you do. So many…” Her gaze returned to the Power and cherub, and again it glistened with tears. “I’m so sorry I didn’t see it sooner. Of course, you are in Love with each other.”

And just like that, Kadmiel felt himself wrapped up in his mother’s arms again, hand and now his whole side pressed into Aziraphale as he both of them were crushed into a hug. Choking back a sob, he breathed, and the air didn’t smell of ash but of salty, joyful tears.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah, finally, a happy ending (for now). I'm not very good at those, but I hope you liked it! Comments and kudos are always appreciated.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahh, another late chapter. I'm afraid this is becoming a bit of a pattern, so though I try to update once a week that may start becoming less of a norm. I'll see, though. This chapter feels very short and I planned on getting much more done, but then Abdiel and Lucifer started talking and I couldn't cut them off, could I? That would be rude. So, sorry, the real wedding will be next time :D

Apple blossoms, picked carefully by some third sphere angel from Heaven’s small grove of experimental trees, were woven through the slits of the arbor’s bough, and when Carmel waved her hand ivy (one of her first finished plants!) snaked its way out of the cracks in the main square’s stage and grasped the slats with creeping fingers, crawling up and into place in no time at all. Over her shoulder the Almighty nodded in approval and tweaked the shade of the flowers from a soft blue to pink, murmuring a reason only Carmel could hear (it must have been funny, though, for the angel laughed and nodded). 

Angels of the Host bustled all around the square, murmuring excitedly amongst themselves as they swept the ash from the streets, hoisted wood beams and stone foundations back into place, and set about filling every clean corner of the square with tables of food and arrangements of plants. Slowly, beneath the hands of a myriad of angels - many still baby pink from their recent healings - the dust was blown away, the shards of glass and splintered of wood lifted from the cracks between stones, and the ichor blemishing the white marble of the square painstakingly scrubbed into brightness.

The sky, too, was white again. As were the columns of the newly erected buildings (most still only half rebuilt) and the wings of the angels who’d just the day before found themselves coated with ash and ichor, burned red and gold, or gone altogether. 

Miniature stars, provided by a gaggle of Powers who’d long since disappeared to help Kadmiel, floated above and around them, and though they were hardly necessary their swirling white and yellow and red energy excited the younger angels and had been requested by the pair of honor. Abdiel for his part thought they looked too much like the embers that had all too recently been floating through the very same air. He didn’t voice this, however. The feeling in the air was too jubilant for that (quite literally; the angels were projecting joy, and then picking up on it, which made them more joyful, and so the cycle continued); the falling apple blossoms - soft, pink snow on the glistening marble stones beneath the arbor - were too beautiful.

“Good choice on Her part, the pink blossoms,” Lucifer said. “They’ll look better with their hair and robes. The blue popped too much, don’t you think?”

Abdiel nodded absentmindedly, pausing in his work to stare at the flowers a bit more. “Mhm,” he hummed, though the sound didn’t feel like it came from him, more like he summoned it from somewhere else. He didn’t need to ask who ‘they’ were.  _ Kadmiel will look beautiful. So will his cherub.  _ The thought twisted Abdiel’s stomach more than the taste of soot on his tongue had, and he hated himself for it. 

“Abdiel?”

He blinked, and suddenly Lucifer had moved to be across the table from him. He was waving a white napkin in front of his face, eyebrows raised.

“Abbie, you with me? These napkins won’t fold themselves.”

Abdiel frowned. “I’m not a fledgling.”

“Really? Could’ve fooled me.” Lucifer snorted but made clear his jest with a small smile (one that instantly made Abiel suspicious, of course; anything more sincere than a smirk or a beaming grin seemed like an invasive species when seen paired with that particular brother).

Frowning deeper, Abdiel snatched the napkin out of Lucifer’s grip and promptly folded it. Pointedly he ignored the morningstar’s worried stare as well as what was fast becoming the irritating beauty of the apple blossoms.

Without meaning to, he caught a snippet of Carmel and the Almighty’s conversation-

“No,” said the angel, “they won’t ever wilt.”

“Good,” She said. “Let’s keep them then, shall we? To commemorate this occasion.”

Abdiel imagined Carmel smiled as she noised her consent, and then there was the snap of shears as a branch was cut off and the Almighty snapped Her fingers, ensuring that the apple blossoms would be fresh and youthfully pink forever, resting hidden in whatever spot She’d chosen to will them away to.

_ Forever… just like what you were supposed to be, right? Like how he and Aziraphale will- _

“Is it the void?”

Abdiel blinked and was jolted back into his current place, folding napkins at a side table because he’d declined to join Kadmiel’s little clique of bridesmaids. Kadmiel hadn’t seemed to mind much, though, not when he knew Aziraphale would be waiting for him once he returned.

_ Shouldn’t focus on that, _ Abdiel scolded himself. Narrowing his focus he stared at the napkin in his hand. Matched the corners, a rectangle. Turned it ninety degrees. Matched the corners, a square. Turned it forty-five degrees, matched the corners, a triangle. Put it with the others, exactly one centimeter of a margin between it and the edge of the identical napkin below. He picked up a new napkin, also identical, but didn’t fold it.

Lucifer was waiting for him to answer.

“No.”

His brother’s eyebrows raised. “It should be, but never mind. Is it Gabriel?”

Abdiel shrugged. To be honest, if there had been nothing important going on that day, it probably would be Gabriel. He was angry at his brother, of course, he was, and She had done nothing to him for his crimes but let him grovel in the dirty square for forgiveness and then sent him away. The archangel would not be present for the ceremony that day, he and Bael were sulking somewhere among the stars (Uriel’s patch, most likely; they wouldn’t dare go near Kadmiel’s). But that was self-imposed; She had forgiven all of the angels immediately with no more penance than ordering them to rebuild the city without Her help - excluding all of those who had been injured in the fires, of course. Abdiel didn’t know Her reasoning and was too exhausted from the whirlwind of his back-to-back revelations to ask (the successive punches of My-Twin-Brother-Doesn’t-Seem-To-Love-Me-Anymore, There-May-Be-Another-God-And-Mother-Imprisoned-Them, My-Brother-Got-Freaked-And-Tried-To-Imprison-Half-The-Angel-Population-For-Falling-In-Love, The-Silver-City-Nearly-Burned-Down, and My-Brother-Is-Getting-Married-And-Leaving-Me-For-Good would do a number on anyone, after all), but from the look on Kadmiel’s face when She explained it to him he didn’t want to know. So yes, it could have been Gabriel. Abdiel liked to think it should have been Gabriel. But more important things were going on that day, so, “No.”

The answer didn’t seem to please Lucifer, and he continued to stare at Abdiel as the seraph kept on folding napkins. Abdiel didn’t meet his gaze.

“You weren’t hurt in the fires, were you?”

“No, I would have gone to Raph if I’d needed it.”

When Abdiel didn’t continue, Lucifer let out a loud breath from his nose and crossed his arms. “Well then? What’s up?”

“What’s up?” Abdiel looked at the morningstar skeptically and waved an arm vaguely around them. “A lot of things.”

Lucifer sighed. “Obviously. Which is why I’m not going to wade through everything that could be wrong with you and am just asking. We’re smart enough to be more efficient than that, right?”

“I wouldn’t go bragging about the intelligence of the archangels right now if I were you.”

“Heh, true.” Lucifer chuckled but quickly schooled his face back to sobriety. “But either way, answer my question.”

“Ah, truly spoken like the firstborn,” Abdiel smirked, setting down his napkin to give Lucifer a smug look. “You know, I’d bet Kadmiel and ‘Zira will be the new angels at the top of the list once they’re made official. Having Her undying approval and love announced in front of everyone like that will make them stars.”

Lucifer scoffed. “Too many angels are still behind Gabe, even if they do accept that She approves of love. They’re too ashamed of what they did, and they’ll turn that shame into anger at Aziraphale and Kad most definitely. Probably say they’re mad because of the fires, or whatever, and maybe a few people will be fooled. Plus, I’m the  _ morningstar, _ I-” Lucifer paused and glared at Abdiel as he started to laugh, then huffed. “That was a trap.”

“Yes, and you fell right into it,” Abdiel grinned.

“Whatever, my question still stands. What’s wrong, Ab?”

Abdiel shrugged and looked back down at the pile of napkins (which never seemed to decrease as he folded, there were so many bloody angels), though he didn’t move to continue folding. He looked at the pile of white folds contemplatively. He hadn’t touched them yet, so they were very messy, just a mismatch of shadows and different shades of white. Looked kind of like the energy of the void if he squinted and imagined them darker. Looked very much like the ceremonial robes his twin would wear when he stood underneath that arbor, a sight he didn’t have to squint to see. “Absolutely nothing,” he told Lucifer, coming back into the present. Looking up, he tried for a small smile, though even he knew it looked strained. “Kadmiel’s getting married today, I’m great.”

“No, you’re not.”

Abdiel didn’t respond, just stared at his hands and the white shadows on the table.

Lucifer sighed. “Hey, I know it’s hard right now. I was pushing, eh, some tough things, you know. And then you disappeared, and She did, and all this-” he waved his hand at the streets behind them, the ends of which hadn’t yet been reached in the cleaning and were still black with soot and buildings turned into charcoal, “-and I for one am still confused as heaven about what you saw. It’s a lot to process. But we need to talk about it, figure out what has happened and talk to our siblings about it. Maybe not today, but later-”

“I can’t feel Kadmiel anymore.”

The morningstar paused and stared at him like he was unsure about what Abdiel had just said. After a moment he blinked. “Uh, what?”

“I used to be able to feel him,” Abdiel said, voice quiet. “We were never fully separated, he was always there, at the end of a string, and I could always find him. We were twins, two parts of a whole. And maybe that whole was a little wonky, maybe more like one and a half wholes, but dividing that in half and making us our own people still makes us incomplete. At least, that’s how it feels for me. He’s my best friend, I depend on him, and now…”

“You lost him,” Lucifer said, tone quietly stunned. “Before you left for Her plane you asked me where he was. You couldn’t find him.”

Abdiel nodded, not meeting his brother’s gaze. “The link is gone now, just disappeared. And he-” the seraph swallowed, and suddenly he was looking up instead of down, trying to catch the tears before they fell and making up for revealing himself by hiding his contorted face with his two uppermost wings. Despite himself, he heard a sob escape his clenched lips, and in a moment Lucifer was there, guiding him into the shadow of a building and rubbing his back, spreading his wings as a curtain and standing guard as Abdiel fell against the side of a building and broke down in tears on his brother’s wedding day. “I-” he sniffed, looking away from his brother in shame, “It’s selfish, but I hate it. I lost him, I literally lost him, and when I did find him I heard him say- he, he said- he said he loved Aziraphale,  _ more than anything or anyone _ .”

“Abbie, you know-”

“He left me,” Abdiel continued, unable to bear hearing Lucifer refute him, “and he’s happy, and I’m  _ so _ happy for him but I… what do you do when your other half decides they don’t need you?”

“I don’t know, Ab,” Lucifer said quickly, and Abdiel could feel his worried stare through his wings. “I don’t know.”

“I can’t survive without him, Luci. I can’t, he’s a  _ part of me. _ Literally, he’s literally  _ a part of me _ . Three-fourths of an angel can’t survive, can they?”

“Kadmiel is,” Lucifer said quickly, and already the softness was lost from his voice. “Kadmiel,” he said, voice firm and insisting, “is doing fine. Sure, he lost his temper and burned down a few buildings, but that was in response to a pretty dreadful situation, so who wouldn’t? And if Kadmiel can do it, so can you. He’s proof.”

“He has Aziraphale,” Abdiel refuted weakly.

He heard Lucifer’s wings ruffle as the archangel shrugged. “He does, but Aziraphale isn’t you. Isn’t a part of him. Aziraphale is a partner, not another self like you are to him. Abdiel, you don’t depend on him as much as you think you do. And he hasn’t abandoned you like you think. Kadmiel is still your twin, and he knows this and loves you for it. But he has found his independence, and you need to too.”

“How? I’m not a whole angel like this, I wasn’t supposed to be. She… She made me wrong. She said it. What if separating Kadmiel and me was a mistake?”

“Hey, maybe it was,” his brother said frankly, not hesitating at all. “The Almighty makes mistakes - see: the recent burning of the Silver City while She left on vacation. We can’t pretend that She’s perfect, especially after what you saw in the void. But that doesn’t mean you can’t make the best of it.”

Abdiel snorted weakly. “You talk as if we have free will. I’m broken, Luci. If I’m broken I’m broken, I can’t do anything about it.”

“I think we do, that you can.”

Abdiel’s wings dropped and his head whipped toward Lucifer, tear-stained cheeks, red eyes and all. Lucifer looked back at him steadily, not missing a beat as his brother stared at him, jaw agape. “Are you still on about this? We don’t! Free will is for Her, for the new creations that will inhabit the Earth.”

Lucifer raised his eyebrow and crossed his arms. “If we don't have free will then how can Aziraphale and Kadmiel be in love? She clearly didn’t expect it, meaning She didn’t create them to do so. Therefore they must have done it themselves.”

“Lucifer, stop talking.”

“Why? She isn’t paying attention, She never is!”

“Exactly,” Abdiel snapped. “She doesn’t pay attention! She makes things and sets them free. There are an unlimited number of things happening in the universe, so many different factors at play, and She doesn’t pay attention to them. She makes us how we are, and we follow our patterns, but sometimes She just doesn’t look close enough to see how things will play out, resulting in unintended consequences, like Kadmiel and me, like the city burning. There’s no free will, Lucifer, just people’s lack of attention. Stop fooling yourself, it’ll only hurt you.”

“Fine, whatever you say, brother,” Lucifer sneered, and with the snap of rapidly moving air his wings disappeared, baring Abdiel’s red face to the views of the angels milling around them. “But you need to stop fooling yourself too, then. Because if Kadmiel, following his  _ ‘pattern’ _ can survive alone then you can too. So stop weeping and clutching that broken string and get out there and clap at his wedding.”

Abdiel glared at him and didn’t respond as the morningstar - glowing a little in his anger - stomped away. When he disappeared, Abdiel sighed and let himself fall back against the cold, freshly clean stone of the building behind him.

In the main square, the angels had started putting down their work and were gathering around the stage where the Almighty had just stepped before the arbor and raised Her hands.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay... emotional breakdowns. We'll see where this and Lucifer's plans take Abdiel in the future. I'll try and put up the next chapter as soon as possible! Tell me if you want it from Kadmiel or Abdiel's POV (or both). 
> 
> Comments and kudos are always appreciated, and thanks for reading!


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this chapter got so long to get out, it took unusually long for me to write and I've also been preoccupied with other things. After writing this, I'm beginning to think I'm just bad at writing happiness... wonder what that says about me.
> 
> Anyways, enjoy!

Kadmiel twisted the bunched up fabric of his robe tightly around his hand, tugging it closer around his fingers until they tingled and he didn’t need to look down to see them turning slightly gold as the flow of ichor was cut off. As he probably ruined his wedding outfit he leaned against the newly erected doorway of a building ringing the square, the wood hard beneath him and still warm with the remains of the energy from its very recent fabrication (the rule against creating matter had yet to be invented). Nerves tingling, he shifted his back every few seconds, struggling to get comfortable or slow his racing heartbeat. Just across the square the rest of the angels were gathering in a shuffling cloud of white wings and robes that encircled the round stage in the middle of the square, atop which - beneath a splotch of bright white bleeding fuschia - the Almighty stood, beaming and calling everyone to order. On the other side of the square, if he stood on his toes, the Power could just see the tops of the heads of Aziraphale’s entourage as they appeared outside of their own building, though to his disappointment he still could not see that special head of blond curls. Behind and around him, several Powers, as well as his sisters Michael and Uriel, milled around in the building, cleaning up, looking around him to the Almighty, and, in Michael’s case, fiddling with his hair.

“So, you’re sure about this?” Michael, the second oldest of the archangels, asked quietly, a tinge of worry in her voice as she tugged sharply on a strand of Kadmiel’s hair.

He grimaced, trying not to squirm as she forced his hair into a braid. It would probably be the neatest, most even braid any angel could make, but still much rougher in the making than Abdiel’s. “Yes, I’m sure.”  _ It’s  _ Aziraphale, _ how could I not be? _ Frowning, Kadmiel scanned the crowd with renewed interest, wondering where his twin was. If Abdiel showed up then maybe Kadmiel would be rescued from Michael’s claws and able to go to his wedding  _ without _ a headache.

“Mother’s moving you pretty fast,” Michael continued, her worry unassuaged. “I don’t doubt how much you love Aziraphale, Kad, but this… it’s a lot. You don’t have to do it just because She thinks it will help things.”

Kadmiel snorted, smirking at his sister despite the fact that she couldn’t see. “Kinda do, though, don’t I? And anyway, I  _ want _ to. That it will help things settle down around here is just a bonus.”

“Hmph,” Michael grunted, and with a final sharp tug, she released his hair, snapped her fingers, and held up the waist-length braid now adorned with faded pink apple blossoms for his inspection. “Alright. This good?”

“You made it, Michael, so what do you think?” Kadmiel raised an eyebrow and nudged the archangel playfully in the ribs. In response she gave him a small smile, looking at the braid approvingly.

“It’s acceptable.” 

Kadmiel rolled his eyes, then returned them to scan the crowd. “Have you seen Ab, lately?”

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Michael shake her head. “No. Luci just dropped in while those Powers were playing with your robe, said he’d seen him, but I wasn’t able to get much more out of him before he was off to prep Aziraphale.”

“He’s with Zira? Good,” Kadmiel sighed, genuinely relieved that his love had his older brother on his side. He didn’t trust the cherubim who had flocked to help Aziraphale (the same cherubim who had barely known he existed before the whole Gabriel incident). “Vultures, the lot of them are,” he muttered, eyeing the heads of the cherubim across the square with narrowed eyes.

“Well, you better get used to it,” Michael shrugged. “You can’t keep him all to himself now that the Almighty’s given him Her blessing.”

“I know…”

They stood in companionable silence for a moment, watching as She started to hush the angels gathered around the stage and spoke a few words about the fire. The angels hung on to her every word, not even a feather ruffling as She addressed them. Kadmiel watched it with amusement, and he could feel the same feeling rippling off of Michael beside him. He listened attentively like all the other angels, however, close enough that he didn’t notice the redhead approaching them until Abdiel had landed right in front of him and was folding up his wings.

“Ab,” Kadmiel straightened, grinning as his brother finally approached. “Finally, I’d thought you’d forgotten!”

“Forget?” His twin raised his eyebrows even as he smiled back (a little thinly, actually, but Kadmiel ignored that) and the two of them wrapped each other up in an embrace. “I’d be a fool to forget the first wedding ceremony is happening today, never mind it being yours.”

Pulling away, Kadmiel nodded, smirking. “Hey, you can’t blame me for worrying. I’ve barely seen you all day.”

Abdiel grimaced and rubbed the back of his neck bashfully. “Yeah, well, sorry about that… I’m here now, though.”

“You’ll walk me down the aisle?”

Abdiel stilled and stared at his brother with wide eyes. “You’ll… you’ll let me do that?”

Furrowing his brow Kadmiel looked at him quizzically. “Who else would go with me?”

“I…”

As Abdiel trailed off Michael stepped forward and released her wings with a whoosh. “Speaking of, I should go. I’m walking Aziraphale up. Good luck, Kad,” again, she gave him a small smile and then was off, quickly flapping up above the crowd and then lowering back down in front of where Aziraphale was supposed to be, her flight barely more than a brief hop across the square.

As she alighted, the Almighty’s voice in the background changed tone, catching Kadmiel’s attention.

“Heaven is a place of love,” Her voice boomed, “and while it pained me to see the destruction and strife that grew in response to some of that love, today is the day where we finally heal that wound. Today we acknowledge it, we right it, and we celebrate it for the beautiful thing it is. In the future, I look forward to performing this same ceremony for as many of you as wish for it. So now, we take the first step - the first marriage!” As Her initial statement closed She paused and beamed at the Host below her, earning in response a huge wave of cheers and clapping hands, wing flapping and roaring, noisy beckons to the stage coming from all by a feel somber-looking angels huddling on the fringes and in the back of the crowd (Gabriel’s allies, he guessed, embarrassed and bitter, yet still there for propriety). At his side, Kadmiel felt Abdiel link their arms and tug him forward, felt his friends rush up into the doorway behind him and urge him ahead with their voices and nudging hands. For his part, Kadmiel just stared, looked up at his Mother standing beneath the flowery arbor, Her smile broad as blossoms fell like the earliest drops of a rainstorm to her feet. He was frozen, heart-pounding ichor like a drum in his ears, hands tingling and itching to return to twisting wrinkles into his ceremonial robe.  _ It’s starting, it’s time, _ repeated in his mind like a loop, like the cycles She was so fond of.  _ It’s starting, it’s time, I’m marrying Aziraphale  _ now. _ It’s starting, it’s time, I’m marrying Aziraphale  _ now. _ It’s starting it’s time I’m marrying Aziraphale  _ now _ … I’m marrying Aziraphale  _ now.  _ Now. Right now. Now now now- _

Seeing him, frozen at the edge of the square, She caught his eye. Smile turning tender, less showy, the Almighty nodded at him and beckoned him forward, and with the power of his brother’s arm, his peer’s eager encouragements, and that thin lifeline, Kadmiel was pulled forward and toward the stage.

Aziraphale arrived before he did, shaking slightly and face slack as Michael (his commander-general, but also soon-to-be sister?) guided him up the steps. He took the last step hesitantly, pausing for a moment a step below the Almighty and the arbor before meeting Kadmiel’s gaze.

Like the sun finally peeking out from behind the horizon after ages of dim morning twilight, Aziraphale smiled at him. It was small and nervous, barely a slight upwards curve, a sliver of sun, but it was a greater relief for Kadmiel than any sun would later be to sun-starved men (despite the fact that, whatever what his nervous brain was trying to make him think, he’d seen the cherub only a few hours previously). Kadmiel smiled back, grinning through everything twitching and humming with nerves inside of him. Warmed from his numbness he forced himself to focus on Aziraphale - only  _ Aziraphale - _ and walk forward too.

Kadmiel took the final step up, leveling himself with Aziraphale and Her and fully elevating himself above the crowd. As he headed, as if drawn by gravity, toward Aziraphale under the arbor, he felt distantly his brother’s arm around his slip away and his presence disappear to join Michael and Lucifer where they stood a few steps down. But Kadmiel barely noticed this; in front of him, a figure of white curls and feathers and blue eyes sparkling with nerves and an excitement that made them more beautiful than anything else in Heaven, was Aziraphale. And Her, beaming, with a silk ribbon that was practically itching to tie itself into a knot.

Kadmiel looked at his angel, steadied himself, and took his hand.

* * *

“Abdiel.”

The seraph started, gaze jerking around like a pinball after being suddenly unmoored from watching his brother before he finally caught sight of the Almighty walking up on his right. Sighing, he relaxed and nodded at Her as She settled down next to him.

“Hello.”

She smiled at him, eyes soft. “How are you doing, Abdiel?”

_ How was  _ he _ doing?  _ Abdiel hesitated, studying her warily. “I’m happy for Kadmiel. Today… today is a good day.”

Looking away from him, She seemed to settle Her gaze ahead of them at the stage, exactly where Abdiel had been looking just before. He followed her gaze, biting his tongue to keep any pain from reaching his expression. The wedding reception filled the entire square before them, angels flowing around the stage like a chattering flock of birds, eating, drinking, dancing. It was a slightly smaller crowd than before (the angels that had stayed for the ceremony purely out of obligation having departed from shame, or anger, or some other former or current alignment with Gabriel), but the emanations of happiness and love had ballooned threefold with the addition of the party. Flying in the air and dancing together were the couples, the angels that had been imprisoned for betraying Her word just days ago, now gleefully whispering of their own future weddings as below them their peers danced on foot and celebrated them. And in the center of it all, under Her and Abdiel’s gaze, were Kadmiel and Aziraphale, a twirling pair dancing so close to each other they were nearly indistinguishable, nearly just a single mass of feathers and robes and hair and grins. Like a binary star system, they match each other’s beats perfectly, moved in perfect synchronization, never looking away from each other, blind to Abdiel and Her watching, even blind to the poor attempts at dancing displayed by Lucifer and some of his cherubim friends that very nearly knocked into them several times. After one such attempt almost toppled Aziraphale to the ground Michael stepped in, flapping up and shooing her older brother and his friends away to leave her younger in peace. Next to him, the sight made Her smile fondly, and She chuckled. “It’s a  _ great _ day, Abdiel. But,” She peered down at him, and he squirmed under the pressure, “you’re not happy.”

“I-”

“Abbie,” She interrupted, shushing him for a moment, “it’s okay not to be. You’ve done well, you’ve supported him, you’ve made him feel loved and let him go, despite what you feel. It’s okay, you don’t have to save face right here.”

Well, that was true. No one was looking at them, standing in the shadows at the edge of the square, and She did know everything, after all. And Abdiel knew that, despite Her forgetfulness, Her present look meant She was hyper-focused. On him.

Still, he took a while to answer. Maybe that’s how long it took to remove a mask a person’s been showing themselves. “I,” he said, voice low, monotone to match the lines of exhaustion he felt appearing on his face, “I’m not.”

She nodded but didn’t say anything. Just looked at the couple above the arbor.

“Do you know-” he winced, that was dumb,  _ of course She knew, _ “um, why I can’t feel Kad any more?”

“Feel him?” This seemed to catch Her off guard, and her gaze flickered briefly back down to him.

Abdiel nodded, shifting uneasily from foot to foot. “Yeah… we had a link for a long time. Like a… a string. I could always feel him there, find him with it, know he was okay and there. But… that’s gone now. He’s gone.”

“When did this happen?”

“It started fading when he started hanging out with Aziraphale - falling in love with him, I suppose. I can’t remember exactly when it disappeared, but it’s definitely gone now. It took a while.”

“Hm.”

Gnawing on his lip, Abdiel looked up at Her, eye wide like he was a fledgling again. “What happened? Why does it feel like he’s gone?”

She sighed and didn’t look at him, Her eyes moving steadily back and forth instead like She was scanning the crowd. “I can’t tell you that, Abdiel. That link was never supposed to be there.”

His heart, which was useless in the first place (but still) stopped.  _ Wha-  _ “ _ What?” _

She grimaced, mouth twisting in a way that looked ugly on Her. “I thought I fully separated you two, but I must have missed something. I’m sorry. But whatever link you felt with your brother, Abdiel, was barely there, and probably depended on your close relationship with him to survive. Then, when he drifted away… the link finally died.”

“Oh.” Abdiel felt himself shrink, float slowly, aimlessly downwards like a leaf whose thin and brittle stem finally cracked, dropping it.  _ That’s it, isn’t it… _ he thought, struggling to breathe around the rock that had risen in his throat. “But-”  _ But who am I then? What am I, if not Kadmiel’s twin? I’m not whole, I’m not complete, even if it was meant that way it doesn’t feel right… _ but he didn’t say any of that, just cut himself off as Aziraphale spun Kadmiel, exposing his twin’s face for a moment as his long red locks - identical to Abdiel’s own - flew forward and out, letting escape just a flicker of Kadmiel’s nearly blinding smile before he was brought back around to face his lover. The minute glance was enough; Abdiel’s breath died on his lips, like the wind finally letting up, and leaf-him was at last allowed to drop fully to the forest floor and begin the slow, slow death of decomposition.

“You’re Abdiel,” She said, interrupting his thoughts (or, more likely, reading them, for despite what it seemed, She  _ did _ in fact know everything - even if She forgot 98% of that everything). “You’re one of my first creations, and as such you are one of the most flawed, but also the most  _ real _ and  _ interesting, _ you hear me? And you have an important role to play, one that is your own, totally independent of Kadmiel. Remember, Abdiel,” he gulped, looking up at Her as She turned and made to make eye contact with him, “you are the angel, the seraph, of faith. And I don’t only mean faith in me.”

Shakily he nodded and seeming satisfied She gave him a tender smile and leaned down, kissing him lightly on the forehead, before stepping away and moving deeper into the festivities in the square. Watching Her go, he mulled what She’d told him as he worried away his already raw lip.

_ She wants me to have faith in myself. But how can I have faith in me if I’m not even sure if I have faith in Her? _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading, I hope I did this Ineffable Husband's wedding justice! Comments and kudos are always a joy and very much appreciated!


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has been a long time in the making and took me a while to get out... but this time I actually have an excuse for publishing late! Thanks to my town's medieval infrastructure (the US has the "best" economy in the world yet our power lines are all above ground and like a century old) we've had so far two successive power outages after an arm of storm Isaias paid us a visit. Power came back on yesterday, hopefully, this time for good, so now I have finally finished this chapter! Here is the first of Abdiel's three big turning points...
> 
> Enjoy!

“Abbie, we need to talk.”

Abdiel raised his eyebrows at his brother. “Yes? That’s generally the assumption made when you knock on my door.”

Lucifer didn’t react, just stared at him with an unblinking gaze. Abdiel swallowed, nervously shifting his stance. “It’s about Them. And Her,” he said.

“Ah.”

Abdiel nodded, clarification about who  _ They  _ and  _ She _ were was unnecessary, and quickly stepped aside as the morningstar strode into his house.

“So I asked Her where She’d been, today,” Lucifer began, sitting down and draping himself over half of Abdiel’s couch. Abdiel nodded and watched him with a discerning eye as he sat himself, spine straight in a chair with his legs crossed. His brother always sat like that (a habit that, annoyingly, Kadmiel had found worthy of imitating when he was young), limbs sprawled out and taking up too much space, his wings constantly flexing and shifting with the noisy sound of rustling feathers as they draped across whatever seat he lay on. Abdiel supposed it was a symptom of being the firstborn and a favorite child, and it usually ticked him off somewhat. But then, he noted with surprise, Lucifer looked exhausted. His six wings hung flat and motionless down the back of the couch; his limp body fell into the cushions rather than purposefully annexing them. As he spoke, his voice was impassive, the only sign of his opinion on the interaction he described a little agitated rustling of the little wings behind his ears.

Abdiel flexed those same wings on the back of his own head, cupping them slightly behind his ears like that would allow them to better catch his brother’s words as he draped his main pair over his lap. “You mean you asked Her where She was when She disappeared before the wedding?” He frowned at his brother, though Lucifer’s gaze had unfocused, distracted by thoughts and things beyond him. “That’s bold.”

Lucifer shrugged. “What, you think it would offend Her? It’s just a question, and a warranted one at that. She shouldn’t care.”

“But did She?”

“Did She what?”

Sometimes when an angel is irritated their wings will beat slightly, move a few centimeters back and forth, back and forth, often quickly, like they could blow away whatever is bugging them with the disturbed air. A similar thing happens when they are excited, their wings move up and down, spreading wide (that’s where the myth of a halo would later be birthed from, humans seeing seraphs, excited to be chosen for important tasks, spreading their bright white wings wide and up around their faces, tips touching at the top and so reflecting a half-circle of light above their head). Lucifer’s wings were eerily still as Abdiel had to keep his from twitching; the latter seraph felt this as a very odd moment, and he sighed loudly to cover it up.

“Did She get mad, or did She answer you?”

_ Ah, there is it. _ Lucifer’s head wings twitched, flapping back and forth a little around his head as he frowned and betraying the emotions he was controlling on his face. “She did.”

“And?”

“We were right. She left Heaven. She was experimenting with the Garden the whole time.”

_ The Garden.  _ Lucifer spits out the name like venom, like Gabriel had said the word ‘love’. His face stayed neutral in that off-putting, odd way of cold control the morningstar could have sometimes, but he could rarely spread that control to his voice or his wings, and his previously exhausted state turned angry as he leaned forward, freeing two whole sets of wings to flap around as his tone rose.

“The entire time, while Gabe and his lackeys were imprisoning angels - were imprisoning  _ our brother _ \- and while the city literally went up in  _ flames _ without any mediation, She was off on Earth, building walls and testing out trees and flowers and whatnot. All for this new pet project of Her’s, for these  _ things _ She claims are the next step up in Creation. What in Heaven’s name does that even mean? What could be distracting Her from just noticing as angels suffer? As their wings burn?”

“She isn’t distracted,” Abdiel sighed, though he understood his brother’s fury. “She is still here with us, walking among us and listening.”

“Yeah, and how long do you think that will last?”

“I…” Abdiel cringed, dropping his head to avoid his brother’s searing gaze and his puffed-up halo of wings. Unconsciously he felt his wings, his bottom and main, wrap around his feet and middle in automatic defense, though it wasn’t to a physical threat. The feathers around his face fluttered in the same way, partially obscuring Lucifer’s hard face as Abdiel looked away. “I don’t know.”

His voice was small, even to him. A weak response, but thankfully Lucifer didn’t comment on it, and even let the silence stretch out.

“Rahel died today, did you hear?” Abdiel didn’t look up, just studied the grain of the floor. A lot of angels had liked the way wood looked, so they’d started putting in wood floors. Kadmiel had decided Abdiel should too, to match the newlyweds’ new house, so his twin had done it for him. It was oak. “Mother stayed with her the whole time.”

He felt Lucifer look at him; the firstborn knew what he was trying to do.

But he refused to participate, and out of his peripheral vision, Abdiel watched as his brother’s face fell and he collapsed, once again slack and exhausted against the couch, wings frozen.

“She… I saw her yesterday.”

“Raph missed something, he was still busy treating a lot of the more severely wounded. He got all the burns, thought she was fine, but…”

“What? Did it reach her true form?”

Abdiel nodded. “Piece of shrapnel. Tiny, but hot. Rahel thought she just had a stitch in her side. It burned right through her, neither Raphael nor the Almighty noticed until it was too late.”

Lucifer’s face tightened as he nodded, and his head fell back as his neck gave up. His clenched fists and his face were the only moving muscles in him, and Abdiel watched this development morosely.

“She could have been saved, Abdiel.”

“She could have. But the Almighty can’t babysit us. If we fight among ourselves…”

“No,” Lucifer broke him off, voice sharp enough even without the flinty gaze. “She could have recreated Her Grace before she died, just with a snap of her fingers. She just chose not to.”

“Luci, it’s not like that.”

“She did it for other angels!” Suddenly Lucifer was alive, springing up onto his feet in an instant, eyes glowing and all six wings spread wide and predatorily as he leaned over Abdiel. “She is the Creator! She Creates! And I can accept death, Abdiel, I can accept accidents. But this- you said She watched Rahel go.”

Abdiel was leaning back, pressed into his chair to get away from his brother’s looming presence. Wary of anything else, he nodded. “Yes, Luci. She was there, She comforted Rahel in her final moments.”

“Just a while ago She would have been able to save Rahel.”

That was true. Angels had died before, in accidents, in quick mistakes that destroyed them before She could reach them. Not even the Almighty could recreate something exactly, recreate a conscience with all its memories, and the countless tiny little influences that made the being existing throughout each second a contiguous self. She could heal, though; if there was anything left preserving the self She could recreate the power, the energy, the Grace that kept the self alive from nothing. Or at least, She used to be able to

“Yes, She would have,” Abdiel agreed. “But there are new rules now, Lucifer. We can’t make matter or energy anymore, we have to stick with what we have. No messing with the laws of physics, no messing with time. Earth needs rules, and the whole universe has to abide by them.”

“Why? Why should angels die just to make life a little easier for Her pets? We-”

“Don’t,” Abdiel sighed, suddenly feeling incredibly exhausted, like the many ideas and doubts that had been clouding his head for weeks had suddenly taken physical form and bound themselves as weights to his shoulders and wings. “Don’t say we’re the best, don’t say we’re equal to Her, not again. Please, Luci.”

The morningstar sniffed, backing away from his brother so he had space to spread his primary wings out wide as he paced. “Whatever we are, Abbie, we deserve more than that.”

_ Yes… I’d like to think so, _ Abdiel almost said, but hesitated, worried about encouraging his brother when he was in such an angry and rash state. He could see the same attitude in Lucifer that he’d seen in Gabriel when he’d locked up the angels, and in Kadmiel when he’d started burning the city, and he didn’t want another disaster like that on his hands. So instead, he just looked away, cowed slightly in between his wings, and looked out the window. “She must have done it for some reason,” he mumbled, only half believing it himself.

“I’m not sure I trust Her reasoning anymore,” Lucifer muttered, tone dark. Abdiel heard the footsteps stop for a moment, and startled looked back to see the firstborn glaring darkly out the window as well, gaze leaden as he watched the angels walking and flying by outside. “She imprisoned Them - Her sibling, or maybe Her creator - for going against Her, and She is now letting us die for nothing more than being caught in the crossfires of a temper tantrum. What will happen if an angel makes a mistake, Abbie? What will happen if She decides She values the lives of the humans more than ours?” Lucifer’s face was stricken, it’s brightness and beauty twisted into a wraith of anger and simple, self-preserving fear. Looking at him, at the way his wings and hands trembled, Abdiel finally found that he couldn’t look away.

He couldn’t ignore Lucifer’s words this time.

_ They had been so helpless, so alone, _ he thought, swallowing.  _ They had no idea that They’d done anything, no idea what had happened… just that They were all alone, forever left in the darkness, the void, and that She’d abandoned Them there. _ There had been no anger, no bitterness, nothing to show that They were a criminal, that They had done something truly wrong to deserve Their fate. Just confusion, just desperation. He could almost hear Them calling after him still…  _ “Wait! Why? What?” _ not understanding, not fully comprehending, just scared and alone.

Suddenly, he thought of Kadmiel, and a chill went down his spine. His twin could sound a lot like Lucifer used to when he first began thinking these thoughts they were discussing right then. If Lucifer made a mistake… if  _ Kadmiel  _ made a mistake… 

_ We could all end up like Them if we ask the wrong things. _

With a jolt, he understood Lucifer’s anger and fear acutely.

“I…” he shook his head, worked his jaw a minute to get his trembling voice back under his control. “I don’t know, Luci. I don’t.”

_ I know that something happened that She doesn’t want us to know. I know that She was focusing on Her next project while my brothers burned. I know that angels are dying when they shouldn’t be for the sake of that project.  _ Abdiel knew he hated all of those facts, could barely believe them.  _ I know I want to ask Mother what’s happening, just ask ‘Why?’ and curl up in Her arms while She explains it all. Yet…  _ yet there Rahel’s body had been that morning: cold, lifeless, without body heat to dry the tears on her cheeks that she’d cried during her slow death.

“We need to do something,” Lucifer said, voice tight like his fists.

Abdiel nodded.

“I’m going to tell Michael,” Lucifer decided, and stepped towards the door nervously. “She’ll listen to me.” He said is desperately hopeful, a note disturbing on the firstborn’s lips, even more disturbing with the unsaid,  _ I need her help _ , lingering afterward.

Abdiel nodded.

Lucifer opened the door and stepped out; the angel of faith stood up and followed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading, comments and kudos are much appreciated!


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so I'm rushing out this chapter on top of it being un-beta-ed, as usual, and it's a bit short. But it's all leading up to the (unfortunate) action that I'm sure we all know is coming, and that will start to overlap with (but not be exactly the same as) Two Sparrows, another fic in this series. For now, we have some development of Lucifer and Michael's relationship, which is one I've always been interested in : )
> 
> Enjoy!

By the time Abdiel had been born Lucifer had no longer been a fledgling but had just become the first of the original clutch of archangels to reach what could be called maturity. (It’s hard to say with angels, seeing as most of them were created fully formed, only the five archangels having gone through fledglinghood as She and they worked on figuring out what it meant to be an angel. But it can be safe to say that Lucifer had not been mature - in his powers or his mind - until a short time before Abdiel had been created.) Soon after, Michael followed, the first fingers of dawn to her brother’s morning star - not quite so bright or so early but sure and steady, predictable where the earlier herald of the sun wandered. Lucifer leaned on her, despite her being the younger sibling, and their dynamic was much more that of equals or even twins like Abdiel and Kadmiel than the firstborn’s relationship was with his youngest brother, who had barely been walking around when Lucifer first began exercising his independence in Her universe. Lucifer may have quarreled with Michael, and he may have loved Abdiel more than any of his other siblings, but he knew that he needed her. So in times like this, when Abdiel and he were at a loss, the youngest archangel knew before Lucifer said a word that she was who they would be going to. 

They found her with her troops, running the excitable angels through their first training session since the wedding had taken place. Unsurprisingly, the cherubim were rowdy and unfocused, and when Michael noticed Lucifer leaning in the doorway she announced a ten-minute break with a sigh of relief.

When she met them outside of the door, however, her face was grim.

“What is it, Lucifer?”

The morningstar raised his eyebrows and pouted at his sister. “What, no ‘hello’? From your look in there, I’d thought we’d even get a ‘thank you’ for saving you from that.”

Michael didn’t respond, just blinked and said plainly, “You’ve been off for days, Luci. I’ve been expecting you to come over with the problem.”

Lucifer chuckled, rubbing the back of his neck and glancing away. “I’m not  _ that _ predictable, sister.”

Abdiel snorted. “You’re pretty predictable, in your own peculiar sense.”

“Hey, you’re supposed to be on my side here.”

“Oh no,” Michael groaned, dropping her head into her hand. “There are sides?”

“No, no, it’s not that big,” Abdiel bit his lip as he tried to assure her, “we just-”

“Actually, it’s pretty big,” Lucifer cut him off, dropping his light facade to level a sombre stare at Michael, who dropped her hand immediately. “And there may be sides.”

* * *

Michael paced back and forth in Lucifer’s living room, her expression furrowed in what was probably a huge headache - despite the fact that she’d let all of her troublesome troops loose for the day.

In front of her, Lucifer and Abdiel sat perched at the edges of their seats, watching her back and forth progression nervously. Abdiel sat with his back straight, wringing his hands a bit on his knees, and Lucifer watched her slouched forward with an almost eerie stillness.

“Mike,” Lucifer said, frowning with impatience as their sister stayed silent, “are you going to say anything?”

The general stopped, crossed arms tightening around her waist as she stared at the ground. Her lips pinched and she let out a loud, tense breath through her nose. Abdiel gulped, recognizing with ease the first markers of his sister’s stress - though whether it was anger yet (and if so, who she was angry at) he couldn’t tell.

“What am I supposed to say, Luci? Hm?”

Lucifer sighed and leaned back to avoid having to crane his neck as he watched Michael’s stony expression. “I don’t know, there’s plenty of options. ‘Lucifer’,” the archangel raised his voice a pitch to imitate Michael, and Abdiel briefly wondered whether his brother even wanted her help, “ ‘you’re an idiot, jumping to conclusions like this,’ or, on the flip side, ‘Wow, Lucifer, what a discover you’ve made, we should go tell our siblings and come up with a plan’, or maybe even, though I hope you don’t say this, ‘I have no more clue than you do, Lucifer, go talk to Mom’ - though again,” the firstborn implored with raised eyebrows, “I would  _ really _ prefer not talking to Mother right now.”

“Good thing I wasn’t going to recommend that, not yet, anyway. Not right after you went snooping in Her business.”

“Snooping?! Did you even hear what I said?” Lucifer scowled at Michael. “It’s not snooping, I was just showing Abbie the Forest, it’s not as if it’s off-limits.”

“I’m pretty certain that the prison cell he found  _ was _ off-limits.”

“So? Whatever, that doesn’t change the fact that it  _ exists _ , that She  _ put someone there. _ ”

“Yes, and we have no idea why She put Them there.”

“I could guess.”

“Okay, great, tell me, Luci, why do you think Mother put Them there?” Michael’s gaze would have bored holes into any other angel, but against the flames in Lucifer’s eyes, the blades did nothing. The two of them stood there (for sometime Lucifer had stood up, as if looking down at his sister instead of up helped lend credence to his argument) fuming, barely a few inches away from each other, Michael stock stile and steely while Lucifer’s wings and limbs trembled with stormy rage. “What are your guesses, brother?”

Her words were quiet and sharp, needle-like, sneaking through the many arms of Lucifer’s rage and stabbing him. The morning star stepped back, jaw tight, but before he could open his mouth to respond Abdiel finally got up the nerve to stand up and push them apart.

“He has no guesses,” Abdiel said, careful to keep his voice as neutral as possible as he looked at his sister. “We don’t know what happened or why They’re there.”

“And it isn’t your place to judge or guess,” Michael replied icily. Stepping away from her Abdiel held up his hands and nodded agreeably.

“No, no it isn’t. That’s why we’re not. But They’re just one piece of the puzzle, Michael.”

“They’re just one reason why you of all people Abdiel are questioning Her,” Michael said, voice deadpan as she glared at him. Shame rising up his throat Abdiel looked away.

“Yes. Them, and the fire, and Rahel, and everything that’s happening right now.”

“Think about it, Michael,” Lucifer said, voice calm again, “you know She’s been paying us less and less attention in favor of Earth, and right when we needed it most when Aziraphale and Kadmiel were discovered. Now, this is coming out… angels are already  _ dying _ for Her new project, really, truly dying. Rahel was a cherub, you knew her. She didn’t deserve that. How many more angels will have to die because She is too distracted to take care of us, to explain to us what They’re imprisonment means when that gets out?”

“That’s why it can get out,” Michael said firmly, face not revealing even a tiny shift in her stance, despite Lucifer’s cajoling.

“What?” Abdiel furrowed his brow, stomach dropping. “What do you mean? We can’t keep this a secret.”

“And why not?” Michael shot back. “You alluded to it yourself, Lucifer. If this news gets out there will be confusion. Angels will panic, some will become scared and mistrustful of Her and others will get even more defensive. We’ll have more riots on our hands, and just like before angels will get hurt and die. And over what? A voice in another dimension?”

“Not just a voice, a person,” Abdiel insisted.

“Another God,” Lucifer said, and Michael froze, her wide-eyed gaze slowly wheeling around to look at her elder brother.

Her voice was barely above a whisper when she replied, as if she was afraid of being heard. “What?” 

“That’s who they are. They are Her equal, truly.”

“No.”

“ _ Yes _ ,” Lucifer hissed, ruthlessly slashing at Michael and Abdiel as they stared at him in shock. “You know what this means, Michael. Our Mother is  _ not _ the Almighty. She is a sister who imprisoned Her sibling, like Gabriel imprisoned our brother.”

“So what do you propose,” Michael’s voice was truly sharper than her lance, and Abdiel stepped back, heart drumming, from it. “You beat Her up like you did our brother?”

“No,” Lucifer frowned but refused to take the bait. “I’m saying we take precautions.”

“You don’t trust Her any more.”

“No, and why should I?” Lucifer crossed his arms and glowered. “She is leaving us behind, we can all see it, letting us die and still barreling forward, all for Her new pets. I was worried before this before the city burned and hundreds of angels fell out of the sky before She noticed. She is a wonderful Creator and Mother to five, Michael, but She is not a good ruler or caretaker of an entire people. This discovery, important in its own right, just puts the nail in the coffin.”

“You’re right, Lucifer,” Michael said, voice and eyes suddenly soft. “It nails your coffin closed. Now the only question is, will you make me bury it?”

“Don’t be so dramatic, sister,” Lucifer scoffed, though he shifted subtly away from her, drops of unease leaking through his confident demeanor. “I’m going to stop people from dying. Help people, help Heaven.”

“Don’t, Lucifer, just don’t.”

It was hard to tell on Michael’s face, but with a sudden realisation, Abdiel realised that his sister was pleading. The argument that had started so fiery had toned down, and Michael was on her last legs of defense. Gulping, Abdiel did not like the feeling of this, and clearly, Lucifer didn’t either. But the morning star refused to stop shining, and despite his sister’s pleading, he didn’t back down.

When Michael didn’t elaborate Lucifer didn’t say a word. He walked right out the door of his own house, Michael watching his back with slumped shoulders.

Abdiel moved to follow him, but their sister caught his shoulder.

“Abbie, I need you to stop him.”

“I-” Abdiel swallowed, trying to maneuver the rock in his throat out of the way so he could speak. He wanted to cower under his sister’s gaze - mournful, aggressionless as it was - but through some miracle kept his spine straight and willed it to shake his head. “I can’t. I agree with him.”

“You share his fears,” Michael insisted, grip on his shoulder tightening. “I get it, Abdiel, I do. What you told me…” she grimaced, and then it was her turn to look away. “I don’t know what to make of it. I know you don’t trust Mother anymore, not like I do, but there are ways other than what Lucifer wants.”

“Luci doesn’t know what he wants,” Abdiel said, and shrugging his shoulder he easily shook off Michael’s grip. “He wanted your help, that was it.”

“Help with what? A rebellion?”

“No,” Abdiel shook his head forcefully, gaze darkening. “Just in understanding what’s happened, what to do.”

“I can’t change what he thinks he understands from this, and he doesn’t like what I say he should do,” Michael said, crossing her arms again and looking worriedly out the doorway where Lucifer had disappeared. “I can’t do anything more than that.”

“Yeah, well…” Abdiel sighed, following her gaze out the door. “I don’t know.”

“Will you keep him from doing any rash, at least? We can’t have any more riots.”

“I will,” he nodded. “Luci doesn’t want more riots either.”

“We’ll see about that,” Michael frowned but didn’t elaborate. Looking worried, she too left the house, leaving Abdiel alone in the room, again, looking out the open, empty doorway.

* * *

  
  


So I recently was introduced to this new band, The Crane Wives, and I probably think way too much about Good Omens but several of their songs reminded me of this fic! (I'm putting this note here because I don't think you can put clickable links in the endnotes, so sorry if it's weird.) So if you like hearing soundtracks to things you read here are some I recommend:

["Allies or Enemies".](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlehRxcfE6k&list=OLAK5uy_mgBJqpbBLQvUDWUwSuVT8Pr6rgG4rUsLA&index=3) For me this very clearly stuck out as something Lucifer could say to Michael as the war got more heated, or maybe even a certain other important character who will make sense later in the series, but who I won't spoil for you ; )

["Unraveling"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BL1VvNJ1lwo&list=OLAK5uy_mgBJqpbBLQvUDWUwSuVT8Pr6rgG4rUsLA&index=4). I always hear Abdiel singing this, each verse about a different character in this fic. Try and see if you can guess which ones are who (hint: one is Abdiel's own internal enemy).

["The Moon Will Sing](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwhec-xnWfY&list=OLAK5uy_mgBJqpbBLQvUDWUwSuVT8Pr6rgG4rUsLA&index=2)". Stretches it a bit, but Lucifer is definitely going through a period of bitterness and betrayal right now...

["Little Soldiers"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_W7OubAgaTo&list=OLAK5uy_mgBJqpbBLQvUDWUwSuVT8Pr6rgG4rUsLA&index=9). My favorite, clearly about a relationship destroyed by war (at least in my view). This could be any two angels who the War ripped apart, I hear Bael/Beezlebub singing it sometimes, but also the destroyed sibling relationships that resulted from half of the archangel clutch Falling.

Hope people like these songs as much as I do!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading, comments and kudos are always appreciated!


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, it has been a long time since I posted here! I have had very little time to write since school started, and between that and election season there has been very little time to write. I've been writing bits of this chapter sentence by sentence for the past month or so, and now it's finally done!
> 
> I can't guarantee getting back to a regular posting schedule for the foreseeable future (until maybe summer), and I have no idea when I will next be able to update this fic (or any of my others for that matter). However, I will definitely finish it eventually, as I really love this story and already have several major plot points and the ending written out in my head, it's just a matter of finding time to get them onto the page.
> 
> Enjoy!

“So, what do you think?”

“I think you should have let me see this sooner.”

“That bad?”

“It’s not bad. It’s just… worrisome.”

“I didn’t mention Them.”

“You didn’t.’

“So it can get more worrisome. If anything, I think I’m toning it down for them.”

“Why does that make me even more scared?”

Lucifer snorted, and then soon was all out chuckling away the nerves that had only just a moment before had him wound so tightly. With raised eyebrows, Abdiel watched the display, unimpressed as his brother pulled out the laugh a little too long to have been natural before beaming at him. “You’re always so scared, Abbie,” his older brother chided.

“Well I’d be a fool not to be scared of this,” Abdiel retorted, looking over Lucifer’s outline of the speech he was about to make one more time. He wasn’t sure it was just him, but certain words - ‘forget us’ and ‘take power’, for instance - seemed to jump out from the page and scald him like angry molecules of acid. Glancing up at the morningstar, whose face had settled back into anxiety once the guise of laughter had become too hard to maintain, Abdiel added, “And you’re scared too.”

“I-” Lucifer started in protest, but at his little brother’s raised eyebrow shut his mouth and looked away, crossing his arms petulantly. “Whatever. Any major changes needed? Anything that offends your faithful sensibilities?”

Abdiel rolled his eyes. “I suppose it’s best to jump right into the cold water.”

“Perfect.” His unstoppable grin returning, the firstborn took the paper back and waved at someone behind Abdiel. “And there’s Gabe and Bael, right on cue. Will you prep the crowd for me, brother?”

“Of course,” Abdiel nodded, and Lucifer took that as affirmation that he could leave and greet the two seraphim who were eyeing them with suspicion (even as they were the ones standing close and whispering among themselves). Watching him go, Abdiel was nearly tempted to grab him by the arm and go over their plan (as much as their vague ideas whose fruition largely depended on the reaction of the crowd could be called a plan) one more time and remind him of their own rule again, but they had already done that again and again, so he fought himself to rein in his caution. Lucifer was already talking animatedly with their brother and Bael, and Gabriel didn’t look too offended yet, so Abdiel took that as a comfort and himself dove into the questioning faces of the gathering angels.

* * *

The speech started out well, Abdiel thought. Light, friendly. Nothing worthy of suspicion except from the most suspicious of angels, and most of those didn’t even trust themselves by that point. Even the ‘but’ after Lucifer’s affirmation that yes, “We all Love Her”, went down pretty smoothly with the crowd, which Abdiel watched vigilantly as the speech started tip toeing (or maybe, more accurately since it was Lucifer and not Abdiel, dancing) onto untested ground. Suddenly the crowd went quiet, yes, nearly deathly so, but Abdiel saw few aggressive faces, and for a moment he let himself relax.

_ Honestly, your Grace will give out from the strain of your own stress if you keep going like this,  _ Abdiel scolded himself.

Then, Lucifer said it. The first worrisome bullet.

“How long will it take for Her to forget us too, like She does our to-do lists, and how long until She gets bored with the humans and moves on from them, leaving them, her defenseless mortal children, all alone? Do you want to let that happen?”

Lucifer was sincere, as bright and as passionate as he ever was, but the crowd had darkened with murmurs that sounded more fearful and angry than they did agreeable. A few angels even left, taking flight or splintering off of the back of the crowd and departing from the whole event as fast as they could. Stiffening, Abdiel prepared to play his part and enter the crowd itself to sooth it, or possibly even take Lucifer’s place for a few minutes to calm the angels down before Lucifer took another go at it.

“We need to do something,” Lucifer said, oblivious to all of this, but the crowd just grew louder. From his place behind the morningstar, Addiel reached forward and placed a warning finger on his brother’s shoulder in an attempt to get him to slow down, back up a bit, or even let him take over. But Lucifer shrugged him off; simultaneously, turning to catch what was happening in the corner of his eye, Abdiel saw those now famous heads of red and blond hair turning their backs to him and Lucifer and joining the other departing angels. Chilled, the angel felt himself step back and could do nothing but stand aside and watch as Lucifer kept talking.

“The angels of Heaven are Her greatest creations, the only things that can stand up next to Her glory! It is our right and our duty to not only have control of Heaven but also the Earth. She is the Creator, and we must be the caretakers. For the benefit and wellbeing of everyone and the safety of Heaven’s angels and this new race, we must step up. We must go to Her and say that we-”

“ _ Lucifer! _ Enough!”

Like a flash of the lightning that had once ripped through the skies of the Silver City when Her storms quenched its flames Gabriel shot up the steps of the stage and barreled into Lucifer, cutting him off mid-word and lifting him off the ground by the front of his robe as he carried him away from the stage, taking flight above the crowd. The icy silence that had fallen over the crowd as Lucifer had spoken was shattered by the gasps and shouts of thousands of angels and the furious beating of Gabriel’s wings as he lifted a struggling Lucifer higher and higher above the square. For a moment the two of them were little more than a frantic flurry of wings and spitting jabs, white feathers falling like snow onto the dumbstruck angels below, their cold freezing Abdiel’s wings where he’d readied them for flight. He tried as hard as he could to break the ice encasing him, but in the meantime all he could do was watch as his brothers kicked and hit and pulled each other’s feathers out, accusations of cowardice and heresy flying faster than the blur of their limbs. In the end, Abdiel was too late, and after a few long moments where Lucifer seemed like maybe he was about to break free of Gabriel Bael joined, faithfully following their archangel, and then Uriel, and soon Lucifer was hanging limply with gritted teeth from half-plucked primary wings.

Slowly, slower than the falling feathers, the group of them lowered back down to the ground, and the rest of the angels backed away with hushed whispers to make room for Gabriel to settle down with his heels on Lucifer’s wings. Like paint, the feathers pulled from the flesh at their very base colored the ground white and gold beneath Lucifer’s chest as he was pressed into the stone of the square, and it was almost as if his bruises were showing up on his robe too as ichor stained the white cloth. 

“It does not matter the angel,” Gabriel said, voice booming louder than his trumpet as his eyes scanned the crowd, one of them ringed with a dull rusty gold from Lucifer’s knuckles, as if he was searching for faces sympathetic to the brother he was grinding into the dirt, “no one may speak against the Lord. She is the Creator, She is the caretaker, She is the one and only truth. It may seem as if it is reasonable to have doubts, it may seem as if She does not know what She’s doing, but She does. Her mind is above what we can comprehend. As lesser creatures it is our job to follow Her will to ensure the best outcome for us and for the rest of the Universe, including Earth and humanity. Some of you,” Gabriel turned his eyes, like blades stolen from Michael’s armory, to Abdiel, and the redhead stiffened, “may have doubts. Take that up with me, and maybe you can be saved. There is no need to infect others with your malaise. Times are hard right now, but we can not let them defeat us. We must show Her that we are strong enough to be Her angels!”

As Gabriel lowered his raised fist, a strained grin held tremulously on his face, the surrounding angels murmured among themselves. It was far from the roused cheer that Gabriel’s expressive face had clearly been hoping for, but in Lucifer’s eyes Abdiel saw reflected his own relief as the angels hesitated before supporting Gabriel. Instead, their eyes flickered warily between Lucifer - on the ground and shining with sweat, ichor, and dusty golden hair - and Gabriel, smiling fakely over the beaten-up body of the second brother he’d taken down in only as many months. They watched the archangels as if they were holding in their eyes and mouths the spark for another fight, possibly one bigger than that which had set the city aflame, and backed away like they had no interest in being anywhere close to that bonfire when it erupted.

Abdiel realized, as Gabriel’s smile fell, that they still had a chance of succeeding in this. Lucifer hadn’t gotten the other angels to see, but Gabriel hadn’t blinded them either. Whirling around, Abdiel started back up to the top of the platform he’d only just realized he’d descended from. He tripped, but caught himself with a flap of his wings just in time and was able to somewhat straighten his robe before anyone noticed he was back up there.

“E- everyone,” he gulped, heart jumping up into his throat to keep the rock he was speaking around company. He felt his face grow cold, but at the same time the angels turned to look at him. Their cautious, pleading faces grabbed him, kept him from blowing away off of the platform. He had their attention. “Gabriel,” he started, voice shaky, “is right. She is the truth, and we must have faith in Her. As the angel of faith I know that better than anyone. Lucifer and… and I are not challenging that. However, we also know Her, and we know that She doesn’t always tell us directly what She wants from us. It is our duty to help Her care for the world, to be the caretakers like Lucifer says. She has the mind of a creator, She has the inspiration and the ability to comprehend how to create worlds like we do not. But She did not create us to stand by and be babysat by Her for all eternity, to follow only Her orders word for word. She created us to help Her with Earth and Humanity. You know this, She has already asked us to help with the beginning, to help create the animals and the plants and the stars of that new universe. Now we must go forward to Her and tell Her that we are ready for the next step, we are ready to take on more responsibility and care for both ourselves and the humans. That’s not only what She wants from us but also what we need. Times are hard right now because we have not come forward to claim the responsibility that She needs us to take. It is too much to ask of a single being - even if that being is Her - everything we ask. Things will be better once we have more power and responsibility because that is where She designed the power to be. Anything else is against Her will, so of course it will hurt everyone.

“It is tempting,” Abdiel continued, voice steadier now as the full attention of all the angel’s rested on him, “to follow Gabriel. I understand where he’s coming from-” even as Gabriel looked away, refused to meet Abdiel’s gaze as he looked to him, “-and the logic he follows. But sometimes we need to take leaps of faith for the betterment of us all. Have faith in Her sons, in the morningstar. We are mere servants of Her. She won’t always show us the path because we don’t need to be shown, and She knows it.” Finally, Abdiel looked down and met Lucifer’s gaze and finished his speech with a sigh of relief at the sight of his brother’s approving grin. The words tasted a bit bitter on his tongue, but also light, like he’d finally told a truth not even he had known but which made him feel much, much better with himself. With a light head and shaky limbs he descended from the platform to meet Lucifer as he scrambled up, Gabriel wisely backing off as the angels continued to murmur but this time with clapping scattered through the crowd as well.

“Heavens, Abbie,” Lucifer wrapped him in a hug that was a little too tight before quickly pulling away to shake his head, “why did we ever make me the speaker? You did a much better job appealing to them.”

“Heh, well, you were a bit closer to the truth…”

“Nope, what you just said is the truth now,” Lucifer countered, eyes darkening for a moment as he tried to pass on some grim double meaning to Abdiel before turning away to greet the angels gathering around them. But it was lost on Abdiel, who just stared blankly at his older brother’s back as the joy of the words he’d just made started to fade away.

As soon as the gathering was over, though, reality hit him in the face again, and the only thing that remained after that was the bitter aftertaste of those words.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading, comments and kudos always motivate me to carve out more time to write!  
> Not sure if anyone liked the songs I posted previously, but I found another song that very strongly reminds me of this story and sounds a lot like Abdiel talking to Lucifer near the end of the War. It's another Crane Wives song called "Icarus" if anyone wants to check it out. By itself it is also just one of my favorite songs.


End file.
